CC-101 · Lesson 5 · Tipping off

What to say when a customer asks why it is taking so long

Improvising an answer to a fair question is where good people get into difficulty. The fix is to stop improvising.

23 September 2026 · Amanda Dunn · 3 min read

Due diligence takes time, and customers notice. They ask. Usually pleasantly, often at the least convenient moment, and almost always when you are between other things.

If you answer that question off the cuff, you are making a judgement about what is safe to say while standing in a car park. Nobody should be doing that.

Have the sentence ready

One line, rehearsed, true, and the same for everybody:

"We need to complete some standard checks before we can proceed. They apply to every transaction — I will let you know the moment we can move."

It is accurate. It explains the delay. It gives away nothing, because there is nothing in it that is specific to this customer.

Why "standard" is the important word

Checks that apply to everyone are not information about anyone. The moment your answer implies this customer is receiving different treatment, you have said something about them — and that is the territory worth staying well clear of.

Which also means: use the line for everybody, not just the files you are worried about. If your usual answer is breezy and this one is careful, the difference itself communicates something.

What not to add

Do not name what is being checked, or who is checking it.
Do not apologise in a way that hints at a problem — "sorry, there is a bit of a query on your file" is not a neutral sentence.
Do not offer a timeframe you cannot control.
Do not let a persistent customer draw you further. Repeat the line. Polite repetition is a complete answer.

Tell your team the same sentence

The value is in everyone having it. A consistent answer across the office is both safer and more professional — and it removes the burden of improvisation from whoever happens to pick up the phone.

Put it in your induction, and put it somewhere findable. If it lives only in a training module people did once, it will not be there when it is needed.

The one rule where "I was only being helpful" is no defence →Why this sentence exists, and what it is protecting you from.

Where Curlew fits

Curlew keeps the reason a file is slow inside the file — the flag, the enhanced due diligence, who is handling it — rather than in a thread that gets forwarded to whoever asks. The people with the right role can see it; nobody else needs to.

It also means the person on the phone can see that a file is in progress without seeing anything they should not, which is usually all they needed in order to say the sentence and move on.