Pick the stage of the incident and describe the impact. Get a clear, calm update for your status page, plus a short version for social media or SMS.
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During an incident your customers want three things: to know that you know, to understand whether it affects them, and to hear when they will get more news. A good update gives all three in a few plain sentences. It does not need the cause, an estimate or an apology in every post — it needs to be prompt and honest.
The standard sequence is four stages. Investigating — we see a problem and are looking. Identified — we know what it is and are fixing it. Monitoring — a fix is in, we are watching. Resolved — it is over, here is what happened. Skipping stages is fine; going silent between them is not.
Write what a customer sees — "payments are failing" — not what your dashboard shows. It lets people recognise whether the incident is theirs.
"We will update within 30 minutes" matters more than an ETA for the fix. Then keep that promise, even if the update is "still working on it".
Leave out internal system names and vendors. "A configuration change" is enough; the details belong in the postmortem.
The first update should go out within minutes. A status page that says "all systems operational" during an outage does lasting damage.
The "Resolved" message closes the loop: state when it started and ended, what customers experienced and, briefly, why. Apologise once, plainly. For a serious incident, follow up within a few days with a short public summary of the cause and what you are changing — that is the message customers remember when they decide whether to stay.
What is affected, what customers are experiencing, what you are doing about it and when the next update will come. Two to four sentences are enough.
Every 30 minutes for a major incident, and whenever the stage changes. If there is no news, say so — an update that says "still investigating" is better than silence.
Only when you are confident in it. A missed estimate hurts trust more than no estimate. Commit to a time for the next update instead.
Yes, once you know and in plain language. Customers do not need internal details, but "we don't know yet" followed later by a clear explanation is far better than vagueness throughout.
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