Write a root cause letter for a major customer
A formal incident explanation for a key account covering impact, cause, fix, and prevention in honest, non-technical language.
The prompt
Write a root cause analysis (RCA) letter to a major customer after an incident.
Customer and contact: [ACCOUNT, RECIPIENT'S ROLE]
Incident summary: [WHAT HAPPENED, START AND END TIMES WITH TIME ZONE]
Impact on this customer specifically: [WHAT THEY COULDN'T DO, DATA AFFECTED, USERS AFFECTED]
Root cause (internal version): [PASTE TECHNICAL DETAILS]
Fix applied: [WHAT WAS DONE]
Prevention actions and dates: [WHAT WE'RE CHANGING, WITH OWNERS AND TARGET DATES]
Contractual commitments: [SLA, service credits owed - if any]
What must not be disclosed: [security details, other customers, vendor names]
Structure:
1. Summary: what happened and the impact, in 3 sentences.
2. Timeline: detection, communication, mitigation, resolution.
3. Root cause in plain language, with enough technical detail for their IT team in a short appendix.
4. What we did to fix it.
5. What we're changing so it doesn't recur, with dates.
6. Service credits or next steps, if applicable.
7. A named contact for follow-up questions.
Rules: take responsibility for what was ours without admitting legal liability beyond the facts; no vague words like "a glitch"; no unconfirmed dates. Mark anything uncertain as [CONFIRM]. Have legal or account management review before sending if credits or contracts are involved.
Highlighted [brackets] are blanks to replace with your own details.
Fill in the blanks and use this promptMore Customer Support prompts
What to fill in
- ACCOUNT, RECIPIENT'S ROLE
- WHAT HAPPENED, START AND END TIMES WITH TIME ZONE
- WHAT THEY COULDN'T DO, DATA AFFECTED, USERS AFFECTED
- PASTE TECHNICAL DETAILS
- WHAT WAS DONE
- WHAT WE'RE CHANGING, WITH OWNERS AND TARGET DATES
- SLA, service credits owed - if any
- security details, other customers, vendor names
- CONFIRM
How this prompt is built
This prompt follows the RTF structure (Role, Task, Format). RTF tells the model who to be, what to do and what shape the answer should take. It is the quickest structure that still gives noticeably better results than a bare request.
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