How to Write a Prompt for a Hard Email (Refunds, Raises, Complaints)

A good prompt for a hard email has four parts: the situation, the outcome you want, your relationship with the reader, and the tone. AI-written emails often come out stiff because the prompt only names the topic ("write an email asking for a refund"), so the model guesses at everything else. Fill in those four parts and the draft starts much closer to what you want.

Why AI writes stiff emails

When the model gets a short request, it falls back on the safest, most formal version of that email. It does not know the order was two weeks late, that you have been a customer for years, or that you want the money back instead of store credit. It writes for an imaginary average reader, and that is why the result sounds like nobody.

Anthropic's own prompting guide describes a simple test for this: show your prompt to a colleague who has no background on the task and ask them to follow it. If they would be confused, the model will be too. A hard email is a good place to run that test, because the dates, the history and the result you want are exactly what a stranger would be missing.

The four-part template

Copy this and fill in the brackets:

Situation

Give the facts the reader needs and nothing else. Dates, amounts and reference numbers make an email easier to act on.

To adapt it: for a short email, three facts is enough. For a longer history, list the events in date order, one per line, so the model keeps them in order.

Outcome

Say exactly what you want. "A full refund to my original card" gets a better email than "resolve this."

To adapt it: if you would accept more than one result, say which comes first. "A refund, or a replacement shipped this week if a refund is not possible" gives the model a first choice and a fallback.

Relationship

A note to a manager you have worked with for five years reads differently from one to a support inbox. One line about who the reader is changes the whole draft.

To adapt it: add how long you have known the reader and whether you have written about this before. "Third email about this" changes the draft more than any adjective in the tone line.

Tone

Pick two or three words. "Calm and firm" is a good default for complaints. "Warm and confident" works for asking for something you have earned.

To adapt it: paste one or two sentences from an email you wrote in a similar situation and ask the model to match them. A sample of your own writing shows the model your rhythm better than a list of adjectives. The post on making ChatGPT sound more human goes deeper.

Example 1: a refund ask

Example 2: asking for a raise

Example 3: a complaint to a landlord

Example 4: a payment reminder to a client

Three habits that make the draft better

• Ask for two versions. "Give me two versions, one shorter" lets you pick the one that sounds like you.
• Tell it what to leave out. "No apologies, no exclamation marks" removes the parts you would delete anyway.
• Read it out loud. If a line sounds like something you would never say, change it.

When the draft misses, change one part

A draft that misses usually points back to one of the four parts. Change that part, run it again, and compare. Google's prompting guide for Gemini describes prompt design as iterative, and adjusting one part at a time keeps you from losing what already worked.

• If it sounds stiff or too formal, rework the Relationship line. Say how long you have known the reader and how you usually talk to them.
• If it sounds angry or cold, rework the Tone line. Swap "firm" for "calm and firm," or paste a sample of your own writing.
• If the ask is buried, rework the Outcome line and add "put the request in the first two sentences."
• If it is too long, tighten the word limit.
• If a fact is wrong or missing, add it to the Situation line. The model only knows what you told it.

You do not have to start over. Reply in the same chat with one of these:

The second prompt also works on an email you wrote yourself. It gives you a second reader before you hit send.

For more on the habits that waste messages, see 7 common prompt mistakes.

Let PromptPro build the prompt

Writing out four parts takes a minute. PromptPro does that step for you: type one line like "ask for a refund on a coat that arrived two weeks late," and it builds the full structured prompt, ready to paste into ChatGPT, Claude or Gemini. It is free to start, with five prompts a month, and Pro is $9 a month with no monthly cap.