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Rewrite a legalistic delay notice in a shop's warm voice

  • For Small business owners
  • You practice Getting the tone right
  • Time about 5 minutes
  • Level Intermediate

About this exercise

Rewrite the notice as a message to the customer in Tilly's warm, plain voice: short sentences, "we" and "you". Never use the words "unfortunately", "inconvenience" or "regret". Include the order number and the new ship date exactly, and end with the line "The Tilly's crew". Plain text, under 70 words.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Keeping the vague date. The AI keeps 'mid-November' from the notice. Try: Say: "Use the date Nov 18."
  • Falling back on stock apologies. AI writes 'unfortunately' and 'inconvenience' by default. Try: List the banned words in your prompt.
  • Dropping the useful facts. The AI forgets the cancel option and the pot shipping together. Try: Say: "Mention the pot ships with the plant and a free cancel until it ships."
  • Getting markdown back. AI adds bold and headings by default, which show up as stray symbols where this is pasted. Try: Say "plain text, no bold, no headings, no asterisks".
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting and usually runs long, so a vague "keep it short" lands well over the limit. Try: Cap each part instead of the total, for example "each line under 15 words".

What a strong prompt includes

  • Bans the stock words
  • Gives the exact date and order
  • Names the voice
  • Asks for plain text
  • Sets a length limit

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