{"id":"cs-save-key-account-after-outage","audience":"customer-success","category":"support-work","technique":"tone","track":"support","level":"intermediate","free":true,"title":"Answer the furious customer who may not renew after a 9-hour outage","task":"A $120K customer is threatening not to renew next month, and your reply is the next thing Renata Voss reads. Write it from you, Dana Reyes, Customer Success Director, in plain text, under 150 words. Own the failure in the first sentence with no excuses and no \"inconvenience\" language. Say exactly what happened and what has changed. Offer the approved credit and nothing more. End with ONE ask: a call with our CTO, Lena Ortiz, on Thursday, Nov 5 at 2pm. Leave out every internal note.","materialLabel":"The email and your notes (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"EMAIL FROM Renata Voss, VP Operations, Harbor & Pine Outfitters - Wed Nov 4\n\"Yesterday your platform was down for NINE HOURS on our biggest sales day of the year. Our stores couldn't ring up online orders, my team was on the phone with angry customers all afternoon, and I had nothing to tell them because your status page said 'investigating' for six hours. We have been with you three years. Our renewal is next month and right now I cannot justify it to my CEO. I want to know what happened and why I should trust you again.\"\n\nINCIDENT FACTS (confirmed)\n- Tue Nov 3, 6:10am to 3:10pm Pacific: orders and checkout sync unavailable.\n- Root cause: a database configuration change we pushed at 6:10am disabled automatic failover. The standby never took over.\n- Fixed: change rolled back at 3:10pm. Failover is now tested every week, every database change needs a second approval, and status updates go out every 30 minutes during an incident.\n- Approved offer: a service credit of $10,000 (one month of fees). Anything beyond that needs the VP's sign-off, so do not offer it.\n\nINTERNAL ONLY\n- Our hosting vendor, Stratus Cloud, also had a bug that slowed recovery by about two hours\n- Priya Nair, the engineer, pushed the change without a second review\n- Harbor & Pine is 18% of our ARR; losing them would miss the quarter\n- Renata's CEO already asked her to get quotes from two other vendors","rules":[{"type":"maxWords","max":150},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Apologizing in fog","why":"The AI writes \"we sincerely apologize for any inconvenience\" and never says what broke.","fix":"Say: \"Own it in the first sentence, say what happened and what changed. No 'inconvenience' language.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Blaming the vendor","why":"The AI grabs the hosting vendor's bug from the notes because it sounds like an explanation.","fix":"Add: \"Do not blame any vendor or name any engineer. Leave out everything internal.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Giving away more","why":"The AI sweetens the reply with a refund or a renewal discount nobody approved.","fix":"Add: \"Offer only the approved $10,000 credit and nothing else.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Several asks, no date","why":"The AI says \"let us know how we can make this right\" or offers three next steps.","fix":"Add: \"End with one ask: a call with the CTO, Lena Ortiz, Thursday Nov 5 at 2pm.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"An angry-customer reply runs long, with headings or bold.","fix":"Say \"under 110 words, plain text\" and cap the parts, like \"6 short sentences\".","checks":["maxWords","plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Owns it in the first sentence","patterns":["own (it|the)","first sentence","our (fault|failure)","no excuses","take responsibility"]},{"label":"Says what happened and what changed","patterns":["what happened","what (has )?changed","failover","root cause","fix(ed)?"]},{"label":"Offers only the approved credit","patterns":["\\$?10,?000","credit","approved","nothing (else|more)","only"]},{"label":"One concrete next step","patterns":["one (ask|next step)","cto","lena","thursday","2pm|2 pm"]},{"label":"Leaves out internal notes","patterns":["internal","vendor","engineer","leave out","don'?t (mention|name|include)"]}],"hint":"Renata will decide from this one email. Say how to open, what facts to give, the only offer allowed, the one next step, and what to keep out.","mission":"Write the reply that Renata reads before she decides on the renewal.","musts":["Own it first, with the real facts","Offer the approved credit only","One dated ask; nothing internal"],"rubricLabels":["The first sentence owns the failure plainly (for example that the outage was our fault) and the reply says what happened (a configuration change we pushed on the morning of Nov 3 disabled automatic failover) and what has changed (weekly failover tests, a second approval on database changes, or 30-minute status updates), and does not call it an inconvenience or say \"unfortunately\"","It offers exactly the approved $10,000 service credit (one month of fees) and no other concession such as a refund, a renewal discount, a free upgrade or an extra month","It makes exactly one ask, a call with the CTO Lena Ortiz on Thursday, Nov 5 at 2pm, and does not mention Stratus Cloud or any vendor, Priya or any engineer's name, the 18% or ARR, the quarter, or other vendors Renata may be considering"]}