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Group survey comments into the top 3 complaint themes

Practice: Keeping the AI to your sources. About 5 minutes.

About this exercise

Your support director wants the top 3 themes from this week's low-score survey comments. Write exactly 3 numbered lines, largest theme first, each in the form "Theme - count - one quote", where the quote is copied word for word from a comment. Ignore comments that aren't about your company. Keep it under 90 words and plain text. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

  • Not saying how many themes. The AI lists every theme it can find, plus a summary paragraph. Try: Be exact: "Exactly 3 numbered lines, largest theme first."
  • Trusting the AI to count words. AI is bad at counting. Ask for "under 90 words" and it often lands well over. Try: Cap each part instead: "each line under 25 words."
  • Not checking the counts. The AI eyeballs counts or rounds them, and director decisions rest on them. Try: Add: "Count each comment once under its main complaint, and show the count."
  • Paraphrasing quotes. The AI tidies quotes into its own words, so they're no longer real customer voices. Try: Add: "Copy each quote word for word from one comment."
  • Adding analysis nobody asked for. The AI tacks on causes and fixes, or mentions last week's returns theme. Try: Add: "Ignore the spam. No recommendations or notes. Output only the 3 lines."
  • Ignoring where it will be pasted. AI loves bold and headings, which show up as stray ** and # symbols in the director's report. Try: Name the place and the format: "For the director's report. Plain text, no bold or headings."

What a strong prompt includes

  • Sets the number of themes
  • Asks for counts
  • Asks for exact quotes
  • Ignores spam
  • Sets a word limit

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