Investigating
“We are investigating an issue affecting [service/feature/location]. The verified impact is [impact]. We will post the next update by [time] at [status/source link].”
STOP PUBLISHING guardrail
SERVICE-OUTAGE-STATUS-CARD-READY: Do not publish, index, email, or let an AI assistant answer service-outage status unless a human can point to the exact affected service, incident owner, customer impact, workaround, restoration status, next-update time, SLA/credit policy, and approved customer wording. Mark missing facts as NEEDS OWNER REVIEW.
Service outage status source card
| Field | Source to verify | Safe wording note |
|---|---|---|
| Incident / status ID | [Status-page incident, helpdesk ticket, monitoring alert, internal incident channel] | Match the public update to a real incident record before summarizing it. |
| Affected service or location | [Product, plan, feature, region, location, integration, carrier/vendor] | Do not imply all customers are affected if impact is partial. |
| Customer impact | [Unavailable, degraded, delayed, error rate, data sync lag, missed notifications, no impact] | Use the exact verified impact. Avoid dramatic or minimizing wording. |
| Current status | [Investigating / identified / monitoring / resolved / vendor pending / needs customer action] | Never infer resolution from one successful test or silence. |
| Workaround | [Approved temporary path, manual process, alternative channel, no workaround] | Only publish workarounds tested by the owner/team. |
| Next update | [Time, cadence, owner, status-page link] | Use “next update by” rather than invented restoration times. |
| SLA, credits, refunds, billing | [Terms, support policy, account owner review, billing system] | Route credits/refunds/SLA language to owner or billing review. |
| Do-not-say list | [Unsupported phrases AI must not repeat] | Examples: “fully restored,” “guaranteed by noon,” “refund approved,” “no data loss,” “SLA credit applies.” |
Customer-safe outage snippets
Workaround available
“While [service] is affected, please use [approved workaround]. This workaround is temporary and does not change any account, billing, or SLA decision.”
Vendor-dependent
“This issue depends on [vendor/integration/carrier]. We have escalated it and will update customers when [vendor/source] confirms the next status.”
Resolved but monitoring
“The issue is marked [resolved/monitoring] as of [time]. If you still see [symptom], send [evidence] to [support path] so we can verify your account or location.”
AI audit prompt
You are auditing service-outage status wording for a small business website, status page, help center, chatbot, support macro, or AI-search answer. Use only the source card below. Do not invent uptime, restoration timing, customer impact, workaround availability, SLA credits, refunds, data-loss status, vendor status, or final resolution.
Return:
1. Safe customer-facing answer under 120 words.
2. Claims that need source proof.
3. Missing fields that require NEEDS OWNER REVIEW.
4. SLA/billing/legal-sensitive stop risks.
5. A follow-up question list for the incident owner/support lead.
Source card:
[Paste service outage status source card here]Where this fits
This resource is a free companion to SEO After AI. It is for SaaS, ecommerce, local-service, membership, and support-led businesses that want answer engines and AI assistants to quote verified incident facts instead of inventing outage promises.