Difficulties in meeting deadlines
Although the client may well feel more accepting of the situation if you explain the reasons for your failure to meet the agreed deadline, to some extent this is water under the bridge. More important to the client is the action you propose to take in order to rectify the situation. With this in mind you should raise the issue with the client at the earliest possible stage ie as soon as you realise that it is unlikely that the original deadline will be achieved. This gets the client on side and enables you and the client to jointly work out how to make the best of the situation. It could be that it is possible to complete part of the enquiry within the deadline, in which case you must agree with the client which aspects should be prioritised. Or perhaps you could arrange for some or all of the information to be provided by another organisation.
The key to client satisfaction is to prevent such a situation happening. Be realistic when agreeing deadlines with the client. If you are unsure of how long the enquiry will take, say so. It is better to overestimate than underestimate the time required. That way the client gets a pleasant surprise when the search results are ready earlier than promised.
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