Customer Communication Guidelines

Aim to respond in a timely manner, ideally within work day. For tickets and incidents, abide by the relevant SLAs.

Maintain a concise, clear, and informative communication style. Use a professionally pleasant tone and keep the formality appropriate to the customer.

Address customers by their preferred name or title, and tailor language formality and inclusivity to each customer.

Demonstrate understanding and kindness when addressing questions and concerns. Summarize the request in your own words before you move to the resolution. This is the cheapest way to catch a misunderstanding early.

Use company language (English) and ensure spelling and grammar are correct and on a professional level.

Express gratitude for reaching out, regardless of the reason for contact.

Offer a sincere apology for any inconvenience or problems experienced by the customer.

Use jargon-free language for easy understanding. Avoid internal tool names and abbreviations the customer cannot act on.

State impact and risk explicitly, for example "approximately 30 seconds of downtime, rollback available".

Break down complex information into digestible chunks, using bullet points or numbered lists when necessary.

Where a customer asks a recurring non-technical question, answer it or refer to an Account Manager. Additionally point them to self-help material such as our FAQs or knowledge bases.

Anticipate potential customer questions or concerns and address them proactively.

Provide relevant information or updates before customers need to inquire about them.

How can we improve? Encourage customers to share their experience and provide suggestions for improvement.

Keep each ticket to a single change. If the customer requests something adjacent, open a new ticket and link it. If you’re unsure if should be handled in the same ticket or a new one, ask your team and PO for input.

Scope growing inside an existing thread is the main reason threads become unreadable. Let’s avoid it.

Maintain a short Current state block in the ticket description: what is requested, what has been decided, what is still open, and what happens next. Update it whenever something changes.

Anyone joining the ticket should be able to read that block instead of the whole comment history.

End every comment by naming who does what, and by when. For example: "Waiting on you: please confirm the maintenance window by Tuesday."

For reversible, low-risk changes, state a default with an objection deadline instead of asking an open question. For example: "We will restart the service during the 02:00 window on Thursday unless you object by Monday 17:00." This turns a question into a confirmation and removes a round trip.

Do not use a default for anything irreversible, or with a service impact the customer has not already accepted. In those cases, ask.

Collect all open points into one numbered list instead of asking questions one at a time, and ask the customer to answer using the same numbering.

This avoids long back-and-forth which will result in a faster communication.

If the same open point has gone back and forth three times, the medium is wrong. Offer a short call and/or involve Account Management or Solution Architect.

Everything agreed on a call, in chat, or by mail is summarized back into the ticket by whoever was in the room, on the same day. A decision that exists only outside the ticket does not exist.

Set clear expectations for follow-up actions and timelines.

Before closing, state explicitly what was changed, what the customer should verify, and by when they should come back if something is not as expected. Silence is not acceptance unless we have said so.

Check back with customers after resolving their issue to ensure satisfaction.