Part of the having honest, personal communication is to own up to mistakes and not trying to cover these up. Craft the message you would want to hear from a company that made the same mistakes.
Reference
Fried, Jason, and David Heinemeier Hansson. Rework. 1st ed, Crown Business, 2010.
Highlights or timestamps
No one likes companies that try to sweep problems under the rug. If there’s bad news to be told, skip the pseudo-apologies in corporate lingo such as “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.” Instead, think about what kind of apology you would like to hear as a customer.
— ^c73885 from Rework