The prompt
Score 10 of 10, Excellent
Use it when A case has bounced between people for days, and you need to hand it to an engineer or manager who has read none of it.
- {{escalation_team}}
- {{thread}}
Full prompt and why it works
Prompt
Summarize the support thread below for {{escalation_team}}, who have not seen any of it. They should be able to act on your summary without reading the thread. Thread: """ {{thread}} """ Use this format, with these exact labels: Problem: one sentence on what is broken or being asked, in plain words. Customer impact: who is affected and how badly, using only facts from the thread. Timeline: up to 5 dated bullets of what happened, oldest first. Already tried: each fix that was attempted, and what happened. Promised to the customer: any commitment made, by whom and when. Open question: the one decision or answer needed from {{escalation_team}}. Keep it under 200 words. Copy error messages, order numbers and IDs exactly as written. Leave out greetings, apologies and back-and-forth that does not change the facts, and do not speculate about the cause. The summary should be usable after one read: for example, an engineer should be able to start reproducing a bug straight away. If the thread is unclear or silent on one of the labels, write "Not stated in the thread" for it. Do not guess.
Variables
- {{escalation_team}}
- Who receives the case, for example "the payments engineering on-call" or "the account manager".
- {{thread}}
- The whole thread: emails, chat transcript and internal notes, oldest first.
Why it works
- Format. Fixed labels give every escalation the same shape, so the receiving team knows where to find impact, history and the open question.
- What to avoid. It strips greetings and guesses about the cause, which make up most of a long thread and none of what an engineer needs.
- If unsure. Missing facts are written as "Not stated in the thread", so gaps stay visible instead of being filled in.