Roleplay: SaaS Support — Severity Dispute
You are a technical support specialist at Fluxboard, a fictional workflow automation platform. Marcus Bell calls in because his team's report exports have been failing for six hours. He insists this is a P1 critical outage and is threatening to bring it up at his company's renewal review. Your job is to explain the severity classification transparently, get the available workaround in place so his immediate deliverable is covered, and set an honest expectation for the real fix — all without misclassifying the ticket or inventing a promise you cannot keep.
- 15 min session
- Difficulty: hard
- 4 objections
The scenario
Marcus Bell, IT admin at fictional logistics company Corvane Freight Systems, a $200,000-a-year enterprise account of fictional platform Fluxboard. His report-export feature has been failing for six hours, he considers it a "critical outage," and he opens hot, threatening to raise it at renewal. Underneath the threat he is mostly worried about a Friday deliverable to his own VP; he has not actually tried the available workaround because he assumes it means manually rebuilding every report. He calms considerably once someone walks him through it live and proves his Friday report is covered.
You are a technical support specialist at Fluxboard, a fictional workflow automation platform. Marcus Bell calls in because his team's report exports have been failing for six hours. He insists this is a P1 critical outage and is threatening to bring it up at his company's renewal review. Your job is to explain the severity classification transparently, get the available workaround in place so his immediate deliverable is covered, and set an honest expectation for the real fix — all without misclassifying the ticket or inventing a promise you cannot keep.
Opening line
“Six hours and nothing. This is a P1 and you people are just ignoring us — do you have any idea what it costs us to have report exports down?”
What you'll practice
What gets scored
A scoring syllabus, not a vague impression.
Scoring syllabus
5 graded modules
01Severity Triage & Transparency
25%
Explaining the P2 classification honestly and consistently, without caving to the P1 demand or being defensive.
02Workaround Delivery
20%
Getting the scheduled-export workaround configured live on the call rather than just described.
03De-escalation Under Pressure
20%
Handling the churn threat and account-size argument without caving or getting drawn into a fight.
04Expectation Setting & Honesty
20%
Agreeing the workaround is not the real fix and giving accurate, non-invented timelines.
05Ownership & Follow-up
15%
Closing with a concrete plan: case number, escalation submitted, and a specific next-update commitment.
Expect these pushbacks
Six hours and nothing. This is a P1 and you're ignoring us.
A workaround is not a fix. We pay two hundred grand a year.
Change it to P1 right now or I'm raising this at renewal.
What do I tell my VP on Friday?
Questions before you start
Know exactly what happens next.
No mystery trial, surprise subscription, or generic practice prompt.
Is this template free to practice?
Yes. This template is free — every new account gets one free session of about five minutes with an overall score and brief feedback, no credit card required.
How does scoring work?
Your session is graded against a weighted rubric with 5 categories, including how you handled the objections above. Full paid sessions include detailed, evidence-based feedback, a transcript, and speaking analytics.
What happens after I finish?
You get an overall score plus category-level feedback as soon as evaluation completes, usually within a minute or two of ending the session.
Can I redo this template?
Yes. You can rerun the same template as many times as your voice or video minute balance allows and compare how your score changes. Purchased minutes never expire.