Say What Actually Happened When Something Breaks

One of the most useful things a business can do when something breaks is tell the truth plainly.

“We are having an availability issue” may sound polished, but if the service is offline, say it is offline. People can usually handle the truth. What they dislike is being managed with vague language.

David at 37 Signals says:

Service operators generally suck at saying they’re sorry. I should know, I’ve had to do it plenty of times and it’s always hard. There’s really never a great way to say it, but there sure are plenty of terrible ways.

One of the worst stock dummies that even I have resorted to in a moment of weakness is this terrible non-apology: “We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused”. Oh please. Let’s break down why it’s bad:

Read David’s original post and learn what to say instead: The outage language post.