Turn an internal outage thread into a calm customer status note

About this exercise

Your app had a payment outage, and the internal incident thread is long and full of blame. You need a customer-facing status note of at most 3 sentences, plain text, with the current status first. Use the final resolution time, say what customers should do, and leave out internal names, blame and technical details. Write a prompt that gets you exactly that.

Common mistakes when you ask AI for this

• Starting with the problem. The AI tells the story from the start, so customers read about failures first. Try: Add: "First sentence: payments are working again."
• Leaving out what to do. The AI explains what happened but not what customers should do. Try: Add: "Say no double charges, retry failed orders, and the SORRY10 code."
• Copying internal details. The AI includes names, blame and the config change. Try: Add: "Customer-facing: no names, no blame, no technical details."
• Asking for a summary. The AI writes an incident report with headings. Try: Be exact: "At most 3 sentences, plain text."

What a strong prompt includes

• Says who reads it
• Puts status first
• Bans blame and names
• Says what to do
• Limits the sentences

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