Text guides
Customer support
Write replies that explain what is known and what happens next. Keep promises within the policy and give support staff usable records.
12 practical tasks. Each guide includes a sample request and a way to check the answer.
- Draft a customer reply from an approved policyWork from the approved policy text and the confirmed facts of this one request. The reply applies only what the policy says, tells the customer what happens next, and names any fact you still need before a final answer.
- Prioritize support tickets using agreed rulesA customer can sound calm while an essential task is blocked. Another may write an angry message about a minor inconvenience. Use the impact described in the ticket and your team's approved rules when deciding what needs attention first.
- Explain a delivery delay with a clear next updateSay what is confirmed, what it means for the customer, and when you will write again. Leave out any arrival date operations has not given you. A stated next-update time helps the customer more than a hopeful estimate.
- Respond to a complaint without becoming defensiveRestate the customer's specific complaint in plain terms, say which part is ours, and offer one realistic next step. Give the customer a choice where one exists. A general apology or an explanation that reads as an excuse gives them nothing to act on.
- Prepare an escalation summary for a difficult ticketOpen with the decision you need from the receiving team, then give the customer's goal, the evidence and what has already been tried. State open contradictions plainly. The reader should be able to decide without reopening the full ticket thread.
- Turn a tested fix into clear customer instructionsWrite one action per step, say what the customer should see after it, and tell them where to stop and contact you. Use only steps your team has tested. A step with no way to confirm success leaves the customer guessing.
- Rewrite a canned reply so it answers the customerStart from what this customer asked and what you know about their case. Keep the policy section that applies and remove the rest of the template. End with a next step written for their situation.
- Write an outage update from confirmed incident factsAn outage update tells customers which service is affected, what they may notice, what they can do meanwhile and when you will write again. Build it only from facts the incident team has confirmed. Leave out causes and repair estimates until someone has verified them.
- Close a support ticket with a usable recordA closing note lets a colleague understand the case without reading the whole thread. Record what the customer reported, what was changed, how you checked the result and how to reopen the ticket. Say whether the customer confirmed the outcome or whether you are assuming it.
- Turn a repeated support question into a useful articleA good help article opens with what the customer sees, says who it applies to, gives steps someone has tested and states what success looks like. It also says where the instructions stop working and how to reach a person. Collect these facts before drafting.
- Summarize a refund request for an authorized reviewerA refund summary puts what the decision owner needs in one place: what was ordered and when, what the customer asks for and why, what evidence exists and which policy clause applies. The summary reports facts. It does not decide eligibility or promise an outcome.
- Hand off open support work across time zonesFor each open support case, give the receiving person a dated deadline, the latest status, the owner and a next action. State which time zone each deadline uses and when the status was checked. If no one has agreed to take a case, say so.
Related topics
- Software projects
Describe behavior, reproduce problems and make handoffs easier to check. Use the project's real instructions and keep credentials out of examples.
- Business operations
Put recurring work into clear checklists and records. Use the process you actually follow, including exceptions and who can make decisions.
- Local service work
Prepare visits, estimates and handoffs for work at a customer's location. Record access details and scope without promising work you cannot perform.