Introduction
Effective communication is crucial for building trust and resilience during IT incidents and outages. A well-designed status page acts as the central hub for providing customers with transparent, empathetic and proactive updates.
With the increasing complexity of systems and services, even tech giants experience failures from time to time. How you communicate during these difficult periods plays a key role in maintaining customer confidence and loyalty. Leaving people in the dark often leads to more frustration than the incident itself.
This article shares tips and strategies for using your status page to deliver clear, helpful information to customers. Well-executed communication demonstrates that you care, are in control and will do everything possible to quickly resolve the issue.
Be Transparent
Being transparent in your status page communication is critical for building trust with users. When an incident occurs, it’s important to openly share information about what is happening and why. Holding information back or trying to hide issues will only erode users’ confidence in your service.
Transparency demonstrates that you have nothing to hide. Even if the details are technical or complex, make an effort to explain them in an understandable way. Clearly communicating known issues shows users that you are being forthcoming. It also indicates that you are committed to keeping customers informed.
Full transparency helps users feel valued and reduces frustration. When people don’t have information during an outage or incident, they are more likely to speculate or assume the worst. Proactively sharing details gives them an accurate picture of the situation. This prevents misinformation and shows that you respect your users enough to be honest and direct with them.
Adopting transparency as an organization-wide value builds a reputation for trustworthiness with users over time. They will come to rely on your openness during incidents, rather than doubting whether information is being withheld. While it can be difficult to share vulnerabilities or mistakes, transparency allows you to control the narrative and strengthen user loyalty.
Communicate Proactively
Being proactive with communication prevents surprises and frustration for your users. Notify them ahead of time about any upcoming maintenance, upgrades, feature launches, or changes that may impact service availability.
Provide details on when the work is scheduled, how long you estimate downtime will last, which services will be affected, and why the maintenance is required. Send notifications through multiple channels like email, in-app messaging, social media, and text alerts when appropriate.
Schedule and send notifications far enough in advance so users can prepare. Remind them again closer to the start time. Over communicate rather than under communicate when it comes to planned downtime. The notice helps users plan around service interruptions and reinforces transparency.
Proactive communication demonstrates you value users’ time and understand the inconvenience of disruptions. It gives them a chance to reschedule work or make other arrangements to minimize frustration. Users will appreciate the heads up and your consideration.
Provide Context
When system issues occur, it’s understandable that customers will be frustrated and concerned about how the problems will impact them. Providing context about an incident can help ease worries by explaining the scope, severity, and root cause of the problem.
Start by clearly communicating if the issue is widespread or isolated, noting if only certain customer segments are affected. Explain potential impacts in a factual yet empathetic tone. For example, “This backend outage may result in transaction delays” or “The security vulnerability could allow unauthorized data access if not updated.”
Providing details on the root cause also reduces speculation and panic. If due to a software bug or maintenance event gone awry, say so. If caused by an infrastructure failure or cyberattack, note if the failure point has been identified and isolated. Avoid overly technical explanations, but be as transparent as possible without compromising security.
Giving customers insight into the size and origin of issues demonstrates comprehension of the problem. This helps establish trust that you are working diligently to restore normal operations.
Set Realistic Expectations
Status pages often create unrealistic expectations for customers by framing incidents in the most positive light or promising overly optimistic timelines. Setting realistic expectations may not seem as appealing at first, but it builds long-term trust and loyalty.
Avoid saying an issue will be resolved “shortly” or “within the hour” unless you’re extremely confident that will occur. If unsure of the timeline, say you are investigating and will provide an update by a certain time. When you have an estimated resolution window, qualify it by saying “we expect” or “we aim” to have services restored by then.
If an outage is likely to continue through the night or over a weekend, be upfront about that, even if it’s disappointing news. Customers will appreciate knowing what to realistically expect so they can plan accordingly, rather than hoping for the best.
It’s better to underpromise and overdeliver than to continuously miss resolution estimates. Customers will be pleasantly surprised if you exceed expectations, but frequent missed deadlines erode trust. Err on the side of giving yourself flexibility to deliver sooner than projected.
Use Clear, Concise Language
When communicating status updates during an IT incident, it’s important to use clear, concise language that is easily understood by a broad audience. Avoid using overly technical jargon and acronyms that may confuse readers. Focus on explaining what happened, how it impacts users, and what is being done to resolve the issue in plain terms.
Some tips for using clear language:
- Keep sentences short and straightforward. Break up complex issues into smaller, more digestible pieces.
- Define any technical terms or acronyms on first use. For example, “The VPC (Virtual Private Cloud) is experiencing connectivity issues due to…”
- Use active voice instead of passive. For example, “We identified the root cause…” vs “The root cause was identified”.
- Avoid excessive filler words like “very”, “really”, etc. Stick to direct, factual statements.
- Use positive language when appropriate. For example, “Services will be restored ASAP” vs “Services are unavailable”.
- Proofread to simplify wording, reduce complexity, and improve flow and readability.
- Run updates by less technical team members to check broad understanding.
Using concise, beginner-friendly language demonstrates empathy for your broad audience during an uncertain time. Clear communication also helps prevent confusion and manage expectations effectively throughout the incident.
Show Empathy
When service outages occur, users are often frustrated and upset by the disruption. As a status page owner, it’s important to acknowledge these feelings and show empathy in your communications. Avoid coming across as cold or indifferent.
Instead, use language that validates users’ experiences. For example, “We understand this outage has been frustrating and caused difficulties for many of you.” Or “We know how disruptive and inconvenient this service degradation has been, and we sincerely apologize for the impact.”
Humanizing the experience and acknowledging the real hassles outages cause demonstrate that you care about your users’ experiences, not just restoring services. Empathetic language inspires greater patience and understanding from your audience.
Make sure to avoid formal or overly corporate apologies that seem insincere. Use clear, direct language that gets to the heart of users’ frustrations. The goal is to convey genuine empathy, not just say the right words.
Remember, status pages are often users’ main touchpoint during outages. How you communicate reflects greatly on your brand. Maintaining an empathetic, human tone throughout disruptions can build goodwill and loyalty with your customers.
Offer Help
Effective status communication should go beyond just informing users of issues - it should also point them towards helpful resources and assistance options. This empathetic approach shows users you care and builds their confidence in your brand.
- Provide relevant self-help articles or FAQs that may aid users experiencing problems. This allows them to potentially resolve issues themselves without contacting support.
- Highlight staffed support channels like phone, live chat, or social media and their hours of availability. This gives users an immediate lifeline if they need urgent assistance.
- List contact details like email addresses or support ticket links. This allows users to reach out on their own time for help.
- If providing compensation like service credits or refunds, give clear instructions on how users can request them. This can help appease frustrated users.
- For ongoing outages, create a banner linking to the relevant help resources. This ensures users can easily access support throughout the incident.
- Share tips users can implement themselves to work around the issue if possible. This provides them some control over the situation.
- If appropriate, provide instructions on how users can track progress on the issue resolution. This keeps them informed and engaged.
By pointing users towards help and support, you demonstrate that you truly care about their experience and want to provide solutions, not just explanations. This thoughtful gesture can go a long way in building trust and loyalty.
Learn From Issues
Every incident provides an opportunity to improve. Conducting thorough post-mortem analyses of major issues allows you to understand what happened, why it happened, and how you can prevent it from happening again. Bring together all relevant teams to walk through the timeline, identify key learnings, and brainstorm process improvements. Look at the root causes - don’t just blame individuals. Think about what changes you could make to people, process, and technology to build more resilience. Implement agreed actions and track them to completion. Continuously improving your systems, communication plans, runbooks, and team capabilities will help you handle the next incident even better. Post-mortems demonstrate you are committed to getting better and building trust with customers. Just be sure to share back learnings and improvements once they are implemented so customers know you took action.
Conclusion
Effective communication through a company’s status page is crucial for building resilience in IT infrastructure and services. By being transparent, proactive, and empathetic in status updates, companies can foster trust and cooperation with customers during service disruptions.
Setting realistic expectations through clear, concise language helps users understand issues and progress. Providing context for outages demonstrates a commitment to learning from mistakes. Offering help shows users their patience and loyalty is valued.
In today’s highly digital world, resilience depends on a company’s ability to communicate with users, especially when services are down. Taking the time to craft thoughtful, strategic status page messaging allows companies to transform IT incidents into opportunities for growth. This strengthens the relationship between business and customers, driving resilience on both sides.
Keeping these best practices in mind will ensure your status page communication builds resilience across your IT systems and within your customer community.