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Brief the support team during an incident: know, tell, avoid
- For Customer support teams
- You practice Keeping the AI to your sources
- Time about 5 minutes
- Level Advanced
About this exercise
Write the internal update for the support team's Slack channel, exactly three lines starting "We know:", "Tell customers:" and "Don't say:". Use only confirmed facts. Don't say lists the two things not confirmed. Plain text, under 90 words.
Common mistakes when you ask AI for this
- Stating the guesses as facts. The AI repeats 'about an hour' and the vendor theory. Try: Say: "Only confirmed facts. List the unconfirmed ones under Don't say."
- Missing the workaround. The AI explains the failure but gives no customer guidance. Try: Say: "Tell customers: download from the Billing page."
- Wrong layout. The AI writes a long Slack post. Try: Name the three labels.
- 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
- Asks for plain text
- Sets a length limit
- Names the three labels
- Limits to confirmed
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