This best-selling customer service video program includes a highly effective four-point plan for calming irate callers and maximizing their situation.

Sometimes the most costly mistakes can happen in the first few seconds upon meeting a customer or prospective customer. Here are five forbidden phrases that you do not want to use when talking to a customer.

Communicating negative information to subordinates is one of the more discomforting managerial responsibilities. Yet managers frequently have to make tough decisions which sometimes result in unfavorable outcomes for subordinates.

Managers may be lured into using electronic media to distance themselves from the victim(s) of the bad news. A consequence of this choice may be more negative employee reactions than is necessary. We present four considerations balancing efficiency of communication with sensitivity to the impact, increasing employee acceptance of undesired outcomes.

You might think it's fairly obvious that certain sentiments should never be included in a letter of resignation. But you might be surprised at what some people think is acceptable to include in this final communication between employer and employee.

Business communication expert Dana Bristol-Smith, featured in O the Oprah Magazine, comments on how to deliver bad news in this KFMB, Channel 8, San Diego news report.

The phone rings, and you pick it up. The voice on the other end sounds distressed. She identifies herself as a job applicant that your company recently rejected. Could you please tell her why she didn't get the job?

According to attorney Barbara Kate Repa, such questions are commonplace among rejected job applicants. Proceed with caution, advises Repa. "The rejectees have little to gain from you--and you have everything to lose," writes Repa in her book, Avoid Employee Lawsuits: Commonsense Tips for Responsible Management.

The first job of a leader is to be a clear communicator. And one of the toughest challenges for a communicator is to deliver bad news. So leaders who want people to take them at their word in good times had better choose their words wisely during bad times.