The best implementation of this I've ever seen was an email with a heartfelt apology and a link to a pick-your-credit system. Assume $20 is the cost of the service for one month.
- I was really inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $20 credit.)
- I was somewhat inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $10 credit.)
- I was a little inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $5 credit.)
- I wasn't really inconvenienced but I appreciate that you sent me the email. I don't want a credit. (Thanks. We appreciate your business, and will try to always do our best by you.)
The last time I had a substantial outage, I figured out which sixty individuals were affected by it, and put an apology on their dashboards. The two who were paying customers got handwritten emails, and I did the work they had been trying to do and attached the result to the email. I offered them a full refund, too (I'll give one to anybody for any reason, so I might as well remind them of that, right?). (Neither took me up on the offer.)
- I was really inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $20 credit.)
- I was somewhat inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $10 credit.)
- I was a little inconvenienced. (We're sorry, and will give you a $5 credit.)
- I wasn't really inconvenienced but I appreciate that you sent me the email. I don't want a credit. (Thanks. We appreciate your business, and will try to always do our best by you.)
The last time I had a substantial outage, I figured out which sixty individuals were affected by it, and put an apology on their dashboards. The two who were paying customers got handwritten emails, and I did the work they had been trying to do and attached the result to the email. I offered them a full refund, too (I'll give one to anybody for any reason, so I might as well remind them of that, right?). (Neither took me up on the offer.)