A £180 Coat Came Back Marked. The Reply Decided Whether They Returned.
The claim email nobody wants to open
A customer writes in: the wool coat they dropped off last week came back with a pale patch on one sleeve. They paid £14 for the clean and say the coat cost £180. They want to know what you are going to do about it.
Most owners answer this one of two ways. Either they fire off a defensive paragraph about care labels, or they apologise so fast that they promise a full refund before checking the ticket. Both cost money. The first one loses a regular customer, and the second pays out on a claim your own records might have explained.
The prompt that sorts it out
The prompt Write a Garment Claim Response That Keeps the Customer asks for the five things a good reply is built on: what the customer says happened, the item and its stated value, your ticket and drop-off notes, what you think actually happened, and your compensation policy. It then writes a reply of 150 to 220 words plus a short internal note for staff.
The useful part is the order it enforces. It acknowledges the specific garment first, explains what your records show, states the resolution with an exact amount or action, and only then asks for what you need from them, such as the receipt or a photo.
A worked example
Here is a realistic set of inputs:
- Customer message: pale patch on the left sleeve of a grey wool coat, says it was fine at drop-off.
- Item: wool coat, about three years old, customer says it cost £180.
- Our records: ticket notes "light wear on cuffs", care label says dry clean only, no mention of the sleeve patch.
- What we think happened: possible solvent mark during pressing, cause not confirmed.
- Policy: depreciated value, capped at £120 per item.
The reply that comes back opens with the coat, not a template line: it says you are sorry the grey wool coat came back with a mark on the sleeve and that you understand it is a garment they wear often. It then says your ticket recorded cuff wear but no sleeve mark, so you are treating this as a possible fault on your side. The resolution is concrete: a £95 payment within three working days, or a specialist re-treatment at no charge if they would rather keep the coat. It asks for one photo and nothing else, and it gives one phone number.
The internal note tells your counter staff to log the claim against the ticket, attach the photo, and flag the pressing station for a check.
Where the value is
| Without a structure | With this prompt |
|---|---|
| Reply written in a hurry, usually late in the day | Draft in under a minute, edited by you |
| Fault admitted or denied before checking records | Records summarised first, fault stated only as far as they support |
| Vague promise to "look into it" | Exact amount, method and date |
| Nothing logged for staff | Internal note listing what to record on the order |
The time saved is real, but the bigger gain is consistency. A customer who gets a specific, fair answer in the first reply rarely needs a second email, and many of them book their next clean.
How to use it
- Copy the prompt into your AI tool of choice and fill every bracket from the ticket and the customer's message. Paste the message word for word.
- Be honest in the "what actually happened" field. If you do not know, say so, and the reply will stay careful instead of guessing.
- Read the draft, check the amount against your policy, and send it from your own name. Then follow the internal note so the claim is logged properly.
If your business handles a lot of counter intake, the same library has a handling card prompt for new counter staff that catches many of these problems before the garment ever leaves the shop.