Filtering Internal Messages for Customer Consumption

Many thanks to Nikhil Sharma for suggesting this topic.

CSMs and support engineers are often put in a position where they need to communicate information they received from peers or other in the company to customers. This could be:

technical information (e.g., the customer is using a configuration that has not been specifically tested, hence could fail)
business information (e.g., we are changing our pricing structure, which will impact your monthly spend)
something in between (e.g., the feature request you want is not part of our blueprint)

Internal exchanges can occur through Slack or email and they typically cascade between multiple individuals. They often contain confidential information and are rarely consumable “as is” by customers as they are blunt, overly technical, or simply written in poor-quality language.

Here are 8 suggestions to handle this situation.

Embrace the need to filter. Drill every team member on the importance of never, ever, forwarding internal messages “as is” to a customer. Chances are high that doing so will expose the names of colleagues whose identity should be shielded, risk airing dirty laundry about internal conflicts and delays, or even convey unflattering judgments about the customer. Yes, we are eager to (finally!) relay updates to customers but speed can kill.
Make sure you understand the gist. Sometimes, internal messages get forwarded “as is” not for speed, but because we don’t really, truly understand what they mean. Don’t be shy: if you don’t understand a response, ask for clarification, either from the sender or a colleague. You don’t have to understand all the details but you need to understand enough to convey a summary. For instance, if you are a CSM announcing that a particular bug won’t get fixed, you are not expected to understand all the technical nitty-gritty but you need to be able to state the rationale (and an alternate solution).
Focus on what happens next. What does the customer need to know or do as a result of the new information? Write a (short) one-sentence summary. This is to guide your next step, not necessarily to send to the customer quite yet, so you can be blunt but stay professional. For instance, “The feature request will not be a part of the next release” or, “The Engineering team is continuing to research the issue, so far without success”.
Decide on the communication strategy. Based on your knowledge of the issue and the customer’s business environment, determine whether you will use an email, talk to the customer live or involve additional parties on your end or the customer’s end. If the news is bad, consider switching to a live medium and/or getting your manager’s involved.
Prepare a concise message. Do this even if you will talk to the customer, since you will likely email a summary to the customer after the call, and preparing is useful to organize your thoughts. Use your focus sentence from step #3 and add only necessary supporting details. Use a professional but informal style. For instance, “The feature request will not be a part of the next release since we believe it will not be used by most customers. It is logged as #X and will remain in our records for future reviews” (not, “Per our customer contract, we reserve the right not to implement any feature request. I regret the inconvenience this may cause.”, which sounds bureaucratic, vague, and insincere.)
Don’t overshare. For instance, do not say “I tried really hard to convince the Product team to implement your feature request because I know it’s important to you, but I really have no say in their decision.”
Consider an AI helping hand. Free AI systems do a good job of summarizing long online discussions, especially if you tweak the prompt, for instance to give a short summary in customer-understandable language. Do re-read and tune the result, as you’re likely to get a bland, robotic message–but the summary will likely be adequate.
Encourage free-form internal discussions. Once internal parties understand that internal communications will be properly filtered and adapted for customer consumption, they are more likely to open up in internal communications. Reassure them that you have their back and will carefully tailor customer messages to protect them and the company. This will help you obtain more detailed information, faster, so you can start the process all over again.