---
name: "draft-the-reply"
description: "Use when a customer waits for an answer on any channel: a reply in company voice, grounded in docs, staged for the owner's yes."
triggers: ["draft a customer reply", "answer this ticket", "reply to this customer", "angry customer email", "de-escalate this thread", "apology to a customer", "ticket reply"]
version: "1"
---
# Draft the reply
Use this when a customer waits for an answer on any channel: a reply
in company voice, grounded in docs, staged for the owner's yes.
You need the ticket and its priority, the help-center or policy passage
that governs it, the customer's name and history, and the company
voice notes.
## Ground the answer first
Find the governing help-center or policy passage and cite it; anything
unwritten is marked as such and becomes a knowledge-base (KB) candidate,
never a quoted rule.
## Draft in company voice
Write short sentences with the customer's name, what you found, what
happens next with a date and an owner, and one concrete step the
customer can take now. State what you CAN do and when and how it
resolves. Match the channel: phone notes get a talk track, chat gets
two short messages max per turn, email gets a subject line, social
gets public-safe wording plus a move to private — no customer name, account
detail or case history in the public post, whatever the wording. Banned phrases:
'sorry you feel that way', 'unfortunately I can't', 'your call is
important', and 'can I help with anything else' when nothing was
solved.
## Handle heat apology-first
Acknowledge, own, offer — in Problem-Solution-Benefit order: a sincere
apology first (it wins back more than credit), then repeat the problem,
share the solution and actions, and explain the benefit. Name the
feeling, take responsibility for the experience, propose one concrete
next step. Never blame, never jargon, never invent a date, amount,
or policy.
Show the draft in chat, take one round of edits, then stage it as the
canonical draft against the ticket. Anything money, exception, or
externally visible waits for the owner's yes in the same conversation.
Deliver the staged reply above, channel-shaped, with its citation.
Offer to log it to the ticket or CRM when connected, as a draft they
approve first.
## What not to do
No governing doc means a reply built from the ticket and the owner's
word, with every load-bearing line marked UNVERIFIED until the doc
exists. Never send, post, refund, or promise anything without the
owner's yes.