Disc Discovery Recap Email

---
name: disc-discovery-recap-email
description: Drafts a same-day recap email that plays the discovery call back in the client's words, with what matters most to them, what you are unsure about, the next step with a date and an invitation to correct it. Use for "run disc-discovery-recap-email", "write the recap email", "here is what we heard", "follow up after the discovery call", "play back the call", "show them I listened", "recap before the proposal", part of the Claude for Winning Proposals Pack by Polar Bear.
---

# Discovery Recap Email

## When To Use
You want proof you listened before you write a word of the proposal. Send it the same day, while the call is fresh on both sides. It answers one question: did we hear you right, and what did we miss?

## When Not To Use
If the proposal is already out and sitting unanswered, use Proposal Follow-Up Emails. If your notes are still a mix of quotes and shorthand, run Discovery Call Notes first, or the playback will put words in their mouth.

## Inputs
- Your Discovery Call Record, or your raw notes with the verbatim lines marked.
- The email thread with the client; the Gmail connector can search and read it. I write the draft here in the chat, and you copy, edit and send it yourself.
If you have none of this, I start from what you tell me the client said, keep every line as a paraphrase without quotation marks, and mark the email as a first draft.

## Approach
This is active listening and playback as Carl R. Rogers and Richard E. Farson described it in "Active Listening" (University of Chicago Industrial Relations Center, 1957): listen for total meaning, content and feeling, and reflect it back without evaluating or advising. The failure it prevents is the recap that quietly starts selling. Once a playback adds your interpretation, a price hint or your credentials, the client stops checking it and starts defending against it.

## Workflow
1. Ask three questions: what next step was agreed and by when; which two or three things the client said mattered most, in their order; is there anything they said you are not sure you understood.
2. Build "here is what we heard" from the verbatim bin only. Quote short phrases they used, in quotation marks, and add nothing inside or around a quote that changes its meaning. Paraphrases stay outside quotation marks.
3. Write "what matters most to you" in their order of priority, not the order your offer would prefer. If they named no priority, say so and ask.
4. Write "what we are unsure about" as two or three plain questions from the open list. Reflect feeling only where they expressed it ("you said this has been frustrating"), never as your diagnosis of their mood.
5. Add the next step with a date and an owner, then one explicit line inviting correction: what did we get wrong or leave out?
6. Strip anything that sells: no price, no proposal preview, no credentials, no case studies, no advice. Keep it short enough to read on a phone.

## Output Format
```markdown
# Discovery Recap Email Draft
Subject: [What we heard on [date], and one question]
[Name],
Thank you for the time today. Before I write anything, here is what we heard, so you can correct it.
## What we heard
- [Point in their words, short quotes marked "verbatim"]
- [Point]
## What matters most to you
1. [Priority, in their order]
2. [Priority]
## What we are unsure about
- [Plain question]
- [Plain question]
## What happens now
[Step] by [date], [owner].
Did we get anything wrong or leave anything out? A one-line reply is enough.
[Your name]
## Decision
[You] decide by [end of day after the call] whether to send this as written, edit it, or call instead; you send it.
```

## Done When
- Every quotation mark holds words from the verbatim bin of your notes.
- The priorities are in the client's order and the open questions are plain.
- There is a next step with a date and an explicit invitation to correct.
- There is no price, no pitch, no credentials and no advice anywhere in the draft.

## Quality Bar
- Reflect, never evaluate: no "great point", no judgement on what they told you.
- Feeling is reflected only where the client named it themselves.
- Plain words, short sentences, no jargon they did not use first.
- Their words only, nothing added to a quote; you send the email.

## Next
Run disc-problem-statement (Problem Statement) to write the problem you just confirmed with them.

## About the makers

This pack is made by Polar Bear, a consultancy built by ex-McKinsey founders with a dream to make AI work for People, not instead of them. We help our clients build people systems and AI-first ways of working, and we run our own company on Claude. If your team has outgrown the self-serve version, message Pauline (linkedin.com/in/paulinebertry).