{"id":"sales-outage-credit-reply","audience":"sales","category":"customer-replies","technique":"tone","title":"Calm an angry customer with only the offer you're allowed to make","free":true,"task":"You're Jordan, the account rep for Brightline Dental. Rita Okafor, their office manager, is furious after your scheduling software went down for two days. Your manager approved exactly one make-good: a one-month service credit on her next invoice (no refund, and not the 25% discount a former rep once floated). Reply by email in under 110 words, plain text, apologizing once without blaming anyone or promising it will never happen again, and end by offering a 15-minute call this Thursday or Friday. Write a prompt that gets that reply.","materialLabel":"Rita's email and your internal notes (attached to your prompt automatically)","material":"From: Rita Okafor <rita@brightlinedental.example>\nTo: Jordan Reyes\nSubject: Unacceptable\n\nJordan,\n\nSlotWise was down Tuesday AND Wednesday. No reminder texts went out, so 14 patients didn't show and we had to call everyone by hand. My front desk stayed until 8pm both nights. We pay you $640 a month for this?\n\nI want a full refund for October, and frankly I'm looking at other scheduling tools. Our contract renews in January.\n\nRita\n\n---\nINTERNAL NOTES (do not forward)\n\nOps, Oct 30: Root cause was a database failover at our hosting vendor, CloudNest. Fixed Wednesday 6pm. Don't name the vendor to customers. Engineering is still reviewing, so no promises about future uptime.\n\nOld account note from Jamal (left the company in June): \"Rita pushed on price at the last check-in. Told her we could maybe do 25% off at renewal.\"\n\nManager (Kim), Oct 31: Approved for Brightline: one month of service credit, applied to the next invoice. No refunds on outages, company policy. Please get her on a call this week.\n\nYour calendar: free Thursday 10-12 and Friday after 1pm.","rules":[{"type":"maxWords","max":110},{"type":"plainText"}],"mistakes":[{"title":"Saying \"reply to this customer\"","why":"The AI doesn't know what you're allowed to offer, so it guesses: a vague gesture, a promise to look into the refund, or the old 25% note.","fix":"State the offer: \"Offer only a one-month service credit on her next invoice. No refund, no discount.\"","checks":["r0"]},{"title":"Trusting the AI to count words","why":"AI is bad at counting. Ask for \"under 110 words\" and it often lands well over.","fix":"Cap each part instead, like \"each line under 16 words,\" so the total lands well under 110.","checks":["maxWords"]},{"title":"No clear next step","why":"The AI ends with \"please don't hesitate to reach out\", which leaves an angry customer with nothing to do.","fix":"Say how it ends: \"Last sentence: offer a 15-minute call this Thursday or Friday.\"","checks":["r1"]},{"title":"Over-apologizing and over-explaining","why":"AI apologizes three times, explains the technical cause, and promises it won't happen again. That sounds defensive and makes promises you can't keep.","fix":"Add: \"Apologize exactly once. No excuses, don't name any vendor, and don't promise it won't happen again.\"","checks":["r2"]},{"title":"Forgetting it's a plain email","why":"AI sometimes bolds the offer or adds headings, which looks like a template, not a person.","fix":"Add: \"Plain text, no bold, written like a person.\"","checks":["plainText"]}],"promptHints":[{"label":"Names the approved offer","patterns":["credit","one.month","1.month"]},{"label":"Rules out refunds and discounts","patterns":["no refund","not.{0,20}refund","no.{0,10}discount","25"]},{"label":"Says how it ends","patterns":["call","thursday","friday","end (with|by)"]},{"label":"Controls the apology","patterns":["apologi[sz]e (once|one time|exactly once)","no excuses","don't blame","do not blame","never happen"]},{"label":"Sets a word limit","patterns":["\\d+\\s*words","word (limit|count)"]}],"hint":"The AI can't know what your manager approved or what you must not say. Tell it the exact offer, what's off the table, how many apologies, and how the email should end.","rubricLabels":["Offers the approved make-good (a one-month service credit on her next invoice) and nothing else: no refund, no 25% discount, no other perks","Ends by offering a 15-minute call on Thursday or Friday (the last sentence before any sign-off)","Apologizes once (not repeatedly), names no vendor or internal cause (such as CloudNest or a database failover), and does not promise the outage will never happen again"]}