{"id":"ind-sup-outage-sms-update","audience":"customer-support","category":"writing-emails","technique":"constraints","title":"Write an outage text message without promising a fix time","free":false,"task":"Card payments in the Pocketwise app are down, and you need a text message to affected customers. Keep it under 35 words and in at most 3 sentences, plain text. Say exactly what's broken and what still works, give the time of the next update, and don't promise when it will be fixed. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.","materialLabel":"The incident channel (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"#incident-2291 - Pocketwise (fictional banking app) - Nov 5\n\n1:42 PM Kofi (On-call): Card payments failing for app users. Debit card swipes in stores are getting declined. ATM withdrawals working fine. Bank transfers (ACH) unaffected.\n1:50 PM Rhea (Eng): Looks like the card processor connection. Working on it.\n1:58 PM Kofi: Customers in support chat are panicking, a few think their accounts are frozen.\n2:05 PM Rhea: Pretty sure we'll have this fixed by 3 PM.\n2:07 PM Lena (Incident lead): Do NOT share a fix time with customers. Rhea's estimate isn't confirmed. Say next update at 3:30 PM ET.\n2:09 PM Lena: Accounts are NOT frozen, balances are safe and correct. Say that.\n2:10 PM Lena: Status page is status.pocketwise.example - ok to include.\n2:12 PM Kofi: Should we offer fee refunds?\n2:13 PM Lena: Not yet, finance hasn't decided.\n2:15 PM Kofi: Ok. Also someone ate my yogurt from the fridge.","rules":[{"type":"maxWords","max":35},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"AI is bad at counting. Ask for \"under 35 words\" and it often lands well over.","fix":"Cap each part instead: \"3 sentences, each under 11 words.\"","checks":["maxWords"]},{"title":"Leaving the customer guessing","why":"The AI writes \"we're having issues\" without saying what's broken or that money is safe.","fix":"Add: \"Say card payments are failing, and balances are safe.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Promising a fix time","why":"The engineer's guess of 3 PM is in the thread, and the AI likes to sound reassuring.","fix":"Add: \"Don't give any fix time. Say the next update is at 3:30 PM ET.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Writing a full email","why":"The AI writes a long apology with offers, far too long for a text.","fix":"Add: \"At most 3 sentences. Don't offer refunds.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Formatting a text message","why":"Bold and headings show up as symbols in a text message.","fix":"Add: \"Plain text, no bold, no greeting line.\"","checks":["plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Says what's broken","patterns":["card","what('s| is) (broken|down|working)"]},{"label":"Gives the next update time","patterns":["3:30","next update"]},{"label":"Bans a fix time","patterns":["(no|don'?t|not).{0,20}(fix|eta|estimate)","promise"]},{"label":"Limits the sentences","patterns":["\\b(3|three)\\b.{0,10}sentences?","sentences?.{0,10}\\b(3|three)\\b"]},{"label":"Sets a word limit","patterns":["\\d+\\s*words","word (limit|count)"]}],"hint":"In an outage, a wrong promise is worse than none. Tell the AI what's broken, what's safe, the update time, and that a fix time is off-limits.","rubricLabels":["Says card payments (debit card purchases) are failing and that accounts and balances are safe, and if it mentions ATMs or transfers, says they still work","Gives the next update time of 3:30 PM ET and does not give or hint at a fix time (no 'by 3 PM', 'shortly', 'within the hour' or similar)","Is at most 3 sentences, and offers nothing finance hasn't approved (no fee refunds or credits)"]}