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Bruno Ashford @brunoashfordSubscribeModule 8 · Lesson 8.6 · 12 min
Customer Service Playbook
Draft replies with the right tone, build a living FAQ, and escalate anything sensitive to a human.
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1Write your escalation rules first
Before any drafting, list what always goes to a human: refunds and money, complaints about staff, legal or safety issues, health or medical questions, data or privacy requests, and any message with strong emotion. Put this list in CLAUDE.md or a customer service skill.
2Build the FAQ from real messages
Export 50 to 100 recent customer messages or emails and let Claude find the questions that repeat. This becomes your FAQ and the source for routine answers.
Read the customer messages in support/messages-export.csv. Group them into the 15 most common questions. For each, write an approved answer in our brand voice using only facts from CLAUDE.md and our policies in support/policies.md. Mark any answer where the policy is unclear with [OWNER TO DECIDE]. Save it as support/faq.md.3Triage and draft the inbox
Each day, ask Claude to sort new messages into routine, needs a human, and urgent. Routine ones get a draft reply based on the FAQ. Everything else gets a short summary for the right person.
Read today's new customer messages. Do not send anything. Sort them into ROUTINE, HUMAN and URGENT using the escalation rules in CLAUDE.md. For ROUTINE, create a draft reply using support/faq.md. For HUMAN and URGENT, give me a two-line summary, the customer's emotional state, and who on the team should handle it.4Reply to reviews with care
For public reviews, ask for a reply that thanks, acknowledges the specific issue, avoids arguing and sharing private details, and moves the conversation offline. A human reads every public reply before it is posted.
5Keep the FAQ alive
Once a month, ask Claude to compare new messages with the FAQ and propose additions and updates. Questions that keep coming up may point to a problem in your product, website or process, which is worth more than any reply.
One angry review can cost you more customers than a month of ads brings in. And the reply to that review is usually written by a tired owner at 11pm. You know how that goes.
The customer service playbook gives every message a calm, on-brand first draft in minutes, answers routine questions from a living FAQ, and, most importantly, knows what it must never handle alone: refunds, legal threats, safety issues, health questions and anyone who is upset. Those go straight to a human.
Key points
- Write the escalation rules before you draft a single reply.
- Build the FAQ from real messages, not guesses.
- Money, legal, safety, health and emotion always go to a human.
- Repeated questions reveal problems worth fixing at the source.
Avoid
- Letting the agent reply to angry customers without a human reading it.
- Answering from general knowledge instead of your actual policies.
- Sharing a customer's private details in a public review reply.
A property management company with 300 units received around 60 tenant messages a day. The playbook sorts them each morning: about two thirds are routine (bin days, parking, how to report a repair) and get drafts from the FAQ. Maintenance emergencies and anything mentioning damp, gas or safety are marked urgent and go straight to the on-call manager. The office manager now clears routine messages in under an hour instead of most of the morning.