Summary: Behind every clunky software message lies a deeper business reality. That message—”Unfortunately, the provided text does not contain a main story that can be extracted and rewritten. The text appears to be a JSON response indicating an error related to an insufficient account balance”—isn’t merely technical. It’s an entry point into a more important conversation about user intent, automation breakdowns, and how systems communicate failure without offering a way out. If your product experience ends with this kind of dead end, you’re doing more than failing your user—you’re undermining the credibility of your business.
What’s Actually Happening Here?
The original snippet looks like a raw JSON return with a boilerplate error. It says, in effect: nothing to see here. Just an account issue. But if you zoom out, this is a weak response from a system that had every reason to provide a smarter, more empathetic answer.
The user likely submitted a block of content, expecting value in return. Instead, they hit a wall. The wall wasn’t subtle. It was clearly machine-generated, dry, and unhelpful. And now the person who asked for the output is left asking: “Now what?”
This disconnect is where product teams have a real opportunity. Not every error message is a bug. Some are missed chances to deepen trust and show competence. What would it look like if the system had answered with a bit more strategic empathy? Something like:
“It looks like you submitted something that’s structured as a code response, not content we can rewrite as a story. Could we try a different input? If this was from your app, maybe it’s worth checking if your account has running balance or access levels active?”
The Silent Killer: Incomplete Friction
Error messages like the one above don’t just confuse—they quietly erode trust. When systems return uncaring, overly technical responses to users, they teach people that using your product is risky. That mistakes are punished with silence.
This isn’t just inefficient—it’s a reputation killer. Buyers are not robots. If they encounter API-like responses during human workflows, they don’t get curious. They leave. Or worse: they quit quietly and stop recommending you. What’s costing you more—adding a friendly response, or ignoring the churn of unspoken frustration?
Why Error Content Must Be Written Like Sales Copy
Every single error message is an offer: “Stay with us. Let’s fix this together.” When you waste that chance, you’re handing off the hardest part of the journey—recovery—to someone who hasn’t been trained to navigate it.
When Chris Voss talks about negotiation, he emphasizes the value of creating safety. Start by allowing a ‘No.’ People feel more comfortable knowing that they’re allowed to push back. If your error copy tried: “Did something go wrong? No problem. Want to try again?”—you’d mimic that same principle of controlled boundaries.
And let’s not kid ourselves. This isn’t about making people feel fuzzy. This is about pruning abandonment. If your SaaS product leaves people stranded with a JSON dead-end, you’ve severed the engagement path they were on. You never make the offer.
Why Engineers Should Never Write Error Messages Alone
Engineers write error codes to debug. Marketers write copy to guide and persuade. These are not the same tasks.
When engineers write “The provided text does not contain a main story that can be extracted,” it’s accurate, yes. But does it give the user a next step they can emotionally commit to? Does it map to what they thought they sent—or what they expected in return?
Marketing teams that understand systems must sit with product in the actual moment of failure. Ask: “What would this feel like as a client?” Then go one step further. What could we say here that builds rapport, justifies the frustration, and reboots curiosity?
Mirroring the Frustration Back to the User
When someone runs into an error like this, what do they usually feel? Confused, irritated, or discouraged. So use that. Mirror it. Say:
“Receiving code or error replies? That usually means our system recognized data it didn’t expect—often technical logs or malformed requests. It’s frustrating, we get it. Want a hand reformatting this together?”
That message doesn’t just cite the mistake—it confirms suspicion, justifies the failure, and offers help. It follows the persuasion principles respected by top copywriters: reflect the customer back to themselves, and open a door—not an escape hatch, but a clearly labeled cognitive next step.
Let’s Talk About Real Business Cost
Every one of these flat, robotic error outputs comes with invisible costs. Users drop off, Support gets flooded, trust in automation falters. But worse than all of that? You miss the perfect moment to display competence during a moment of confusion.
People remember how you treat them when the system fails. Because failure’s not rare. Every real product breaks, stutters, returns bad data. What defines market winners is how their systems react to that failure—do they expose the user to internal language, or do they convert that flinch into understanding?
Make This Part of Your Content Strategy
Here’s the kicker for marketers: this isn’t technical debt. It’s a messaging strategy you need to be involved in—directly. Build error libraries. Test how different tone and structure affect recovery rate. Wrap emotional logic into your support content. Match your brand’s voice even in its weakest moments.
When you change a response like “Error: insufficient balance” into “Looks like your account’s paused right now. Want help getting it active again?” you’re not just writing a good line. You’re teaching the customer they can trust your entire system to behave like their most dependable colleague: clear, human, consistent.
So ask yourself: Where in your product do errors sound like excuses? Are you letting engineers decide the final word in failure? And if you are—what would it mean if your next conversion win didn’t come from a new funnel… but from a rewritten error message?
#MessagingMatters #SaaSContent #UserTrust #ErrorDesign #ProductMarketing #UXCopywriting #BusinessCommunication
Featured Image courtesy of Unsplash and ThisisEngineering (1oYSrlQrpY4)
