You've just hung up after a telephone conversation with a client who called you to complain about a delayed shipment. You promised to investigate. And she promised to give you 48 hours.

The wise thing to do at this point is to create a written trail of your oral conversation. You write your client a brief e-mail message summarizing your understanding of the conversation and print out a copy for your file. You want a written record of your promise to the client and your client's promise to you. This written memo will confirm your expectations of each other. And if you or she has misunderstood the telephone conversation, your message will immediately identify that misunderstanding and create the opportunity to clarify it. For example, she might have said "within 48 hours," clearly expecting your call before that deadline, but if all you heard was "48 hours," you might have thought that you had 48 hours to investigate and could call in your report shortly thereafter. While a difference of only minutes might be involved, such a misunderstanding could jeopardize the business relations between your two organizations. A timely exchange of written messages could avoid later confusion and disappointment.

In this situation, you don't have a lot of time, so e-mail is the quick and inexpensive choice to communicate your message, but you could also write a letter and either fax it to your client or use overnight delivery service.