eol-message

# EOL Message

## Purpose

Craft a clear, empathetic End-of-Life (EOL) message that communicates discontinuation, explains the
rationale, addresses customer impact, provides transition support, and positions what comes next.
Use this to maintain customer trust during a difficult transition and reduce the churn that comes
from customers feeling abandoned.

This is not a generic sunset announcement — it's a customer-centric communication that acknowledges
loss while framing the change as progress. And it is **sized to the change**: a deprecated toggle
gets a paragraph, a flagship retirement gets phased communications across months.

## Input

**Works best with:** What's being retired (product, feature, or plan) and roughly when.

**Also useful:** The rationale, affected customer segments, migration or replacement path, support
commitments, and any contract or regulatory language that constrains what you can say.

Anything supplied with the invocation itself — text after the skill name, a pasted context dump, or
an appended `ARGUMENTS:` line — counts as answers already given. Use it and skip whatever it
covers; don't re-ask.

**Arriving empty-handed? That works too.** The skill asks for the what/when/why and the landing
place before drafting, then recommends a message size you can override. An EOL message without a
stated rationale and a next step reads as abandonment — so those two get asked for either way.

**Example invocations:**
- `Draft an EOL message: retiring our legacy reporting module Dec 31, replaced by the new analytics dashboard; 400 accounts affected.`
- `We're killing a feature nobody uses. Give me the brief version — no replacement, 3 weeks notice.`

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## Key Concepts

### Size the Message to the Change

The most common EOL messaging failure isn't tone — it's proportion. A six-section announcement for
a deprecated checkbox trains customers to ignore your notices. A one-line notice for a product
carrying real workflows creates a support incident.

| | **Brief** | **Standard** | **Full** |
|---|---|---|---|
| Use when | Feature, internal tool, unused option | Commercial product, active customers | Revenue-critical, hardware, regulated |
| Length | 1-3 paragraphs | 1 page with phase table | Multi-part, phased over months |
| Sections used | Announcement, timeline, CTA | All 9, lightly | All 9 + compliance and obligations |
| Lead time | Weeks | 6-12 months | 12-24 months |
| Channels | In-app or changelog | Email + in-app + docs | Email + account teams + partners + press |

**Most announcements are Standard.** Recommend a size, explain why in one line, and let the user
move it. If they choose Brief for something you'd have sized Standard, note the single thing that
gets lost — usually the phase table, which is what prevents "wait, when does it stop working?"
tickets.

### The Three Transition Paths

What you're really telling customers is where they land. There are three answers, and they produce
genuinely different messages:

1. **Replacement** — another product of yours takes over. The message leans on continuity: what
   carries forward, what improves. Positioning matters most here.
2. **Migration** — same product family, different tier, configuration, or platform. The message
   leans on mechanics: what customers must do, by when, and how much work it is. Be honest about
   effort; understating it is the fastest route to distrust.
3. **Graceful exit** — nothing replaces it. The message leans on dignity: honest reasoning, data
   export, generous notice, and real alternatives *including competitors*. Naming a competitor
   costs less than the reputation damage of stranding people.

The graceful exit is the one teams write badly, because it's the one they feel worst about. It is
also the one customers judge you on hardest.

### Lifecycle Gates (shared vocabulary)

EOL is not one date, and collapsing the gates into a single announcement is what generates the
"but I thought it still worked" support wave:

- **GA (General Availability):** Actively sold and fully supported
- **NSC (Notice of Status Change):** The decision is communicated; planning begins
- **EOS (End of Sale):** No new customers can purchase
- **EOE (End of Expansion):** Existing customers cannot add capacity or seats
- **EOR (End of Renewal):** Existing contracts will not be renewed
- **EOM (End of Maintenance):** Bug fixes and patches stop
- **EOL (End of Life):** The product is retired
- **EOSRV (End of Service):** All support and service obligations end

Brief messages name two or three gates. Full messages name all eight in a table. **Whichever gates
you use, define them in the customer's terms** — "you can keep using it, but we won't ship fixes"
beats "EOM: 3/2027."

### The EOL Messaging Framework

An effective EOL message balances honesty about the change with empathy for customer impact:

1. **Company context:** Who you are and your commitment to customers
2. **The announcement:** What's ending and what's replacing it
3. **The rationale:** Why this benefits customers (not just the business)
4. **Current product context:** What the product was and who it served
5. **Customer impact:** How this affects users (acknowledge the disruption)
6. **Transition solution:** The landing place and how it compares
7. **Support measures:** How you'll help them get there
8. **Timeline:** Key dates and gates
9. **Call to action:** Next steps and contact info

### Why This Works
- **Empathy-first:** Acknowledges disruption before justifying the decision
- **Clarity:** No ambiguity about what's changing and when
- **Support-focused:** Shows you're not abandoning customers mid-transition
- **Future-oriented:** Frames change as progress, not loss

### The Sticky-Note Rule

A customer should be able to write what they must do, and by when, on a sticky note after one read.
If they can't, the message is decoration. Test every draft against this before sending.

### Anti-Patterns (What This Is NOT)
- **Not a terse shutdown no