Website Maintenance: How to Notify Your Customers and Keep Them

Website maintenance is essential for keeping your platform secure, functional, and up to date. However, unexpected or poorly communicated downtime can frustrate users and lead to lost customers. If things go wrong, your website’s downtime can actually be high time for frustrated customers to leave. You don’t want it, do you? The key is to turn maintenance into a positive experience through proactive communication with customers, trust-building, and even creative engagement. 

Here’s a true story confirming that. I knew a guy who owned an online shoe boutique. He was a rather creative person and, before fixing his website, developed multistep communication with his customers. In his first personalized email, a week before website maintenance, he wrote, “Hello, don’t be afraid! We will make magic on our site on November 20, from 00:00 to 03:00 ETC. You won’t be able to place orders during that time, but we will add a fast one-click payment option and fix bugs to make your shopping with us even more comfortable. Just come back in the morning.” 

Then, exactly one hour before downtime, he sent another email to his customers, and the main message was, “Hey, in 60 minutes, our website goes on vacation till 3 am. We’ll come back with cool features. Please be patient.” Finally, his first uptime post was, “Welcome back! Everything is fixed, the website is up, bugs have been shot, and speed is great. From now on, enjoy our fantastic one-click payment feature. And, to celebrate our comeback, enter THANKS and get 15% off any order, available today only!”

This is a perfect, real-life example of how to notify your customers while maintaining websites and keeping them hooked. From this article, you will learn how to properly craft website maintenance email templates, keeping your customers happy in the process. Enjoy your ride! 

What Is Website Maintenance?

The #1 question is: why is website maintenance important? Simply because it provides updates, security patches, and performance enhancements and fixes bugs. In other words, website maintenance is essential, you can’t just escape by choice. According to ADA, an online marketing agency, it may have very tangible benefits, such as enhanced UX, increased website security, and improved conversion rates, among others. 

Scheduled maintenance ensures smooth operation, while emergency maintenance addresses urgent issues and discourages your customers. Despite its necessity, downtime can disrupt user experience—unless handled correctly.

The Cost of Poor Downtime Communication

Every moment of website downtime can lead to lost revenue, missed opportunities, and damaged trust. Your customers may switch to competitors if they’re not informed about why the site is unavailable, so avoid posting “Page 404,” as they may think your business has gone bust. In this case, it is all about poor communication! It can easily lead to negative reviews and decreased brand loyalty even when your website comes back to normal operations.

Turning Website Maintenance into a Positive Experience

Yes, we talk about turning risk into opportunity. We recommend you look from this perspective: instead of viewing downtime as a risk, use it as a chance to engage with customers and strengthen communication. You will do it by crafting a perfect website maintenance email template. 

Effective communication strategies

There are several ways to keep things under control and come out of the ongoing website maintenance period with no losses. Let’s look at these strategies.

Notify customers early

One thing is for sure: transparency is crucial. You can apply an omnichannel approach, engaging a variety of channels—emails, social media, banners—to inform users at least a few days in advance. Let them know the reason and expected duration of the maintenance.

Talk about the benefits

You can also frame the maintenance as an upgrade, creating added customer value. In the email, you can explain to the customer how it will improve security and speed or introduce new features (check out the story at the beginning of this article to see how this can be done). Such an approach will reassure customers that their patience will be rewarded.

Use reassuring communication

Please note that website maintenance is still a bit of an uncomfortable issue to customers. So sending a well-crafted email—based on one of the templates provided later in this article—can ease customer concerns. 

Leveraging the Opportunity to Build Trust

There are several efficient and proven ways to make it happen. Let’s see what you can do while developing communication with customers prior to the scheduled downtime.

“We’re improving for you” messaging

Again, we recommend using positive language to show that maintenance is for the users’ ultimate benefit. A message like “Exciting upgrades for a better shopping experience!” turns downtime into anticipation rather than disappointment.

Gamified waiting pages

Instead of a boring, generic “We’ll be back soon” page, entertain your customers with interactive layout elements. Here’s what you can do:

• Introduce a mini-game to pass the time.
• Add a fun quiz about your company.
• Insert a countdown timer with playful messages.

Special offers during downtime

Offering exclusive discounts or early access to a new feature keeps customers engaged even when the site is down. You can offer a promo code or simply a discount for shopping. 

Share updates post-maintenance

Once your company website is back, sending a follow-up message looks like a fantastic idea. Thank users for their patience, highlight improvements, and reinforce your commitment to a better experience. For example, you can say, “We’re back online! Check out our new features and enjoy post-downtime exclusive offers—only for today!”

Let’s now look at two effective website maintenance templates for SaaS and e-commerce businesses.

Website Maintenance Notice Email Template for SaaS

This email template notifies the customer of planned server maintenance for the streaming service, including the date and time of the outage. It highlights expected improvements like better streaming quality and faster load times and encourages customers to stay updated by keeping in touch with the company’s social media. In the bottom part, the email expresses appreciation for their patience and includes several CTA buttons for more info and support.

Why this template works

• Personalizing the recipient’s name is a must-have, and it is in place in this email template. 
• Information about upgrades like improved streaming quality and faster load times is a helpful tool that creates added value for the customer. 
• Clear information about upcoming website maintenance, mentioning date and start/end times, is a good customer-friendly solution. 

Customization ideas

• More personalization fields with the recipient’s name would be a good idea. The best thing would be to add another personalization field at the bottom of the email.
• Expand the “What to Expect” section by adding sneak peeks of upcoming features within the email template.
• Add more contact options for urgent needs on the page for direct communication.

Website Maintenance Notice Email Template for E-Commerce

Here’s a website maintenance message for an e-commerce optics store that offers eyewear and contact lenses. It informs customers of the upcoming downtime, focuses on the near future improvements, and gives instructions on preparing for it. It also provides support contact information. The email has several CTAs to learn more about maintenance, going shopping, and contacting customer support.

Why this template works

• The email template uses a friendly, customer-centric tone. For example, it communicates a strong connection between website upgrades and future benefits in the headline “Temporary Downtime for a Better Shopping Experience.” Also, the “What’s Being Upgraded?” and “Plan Ahead for the Downtime” sections relate to the customer-caring approach. 
• It also provides an estimated downtime (September 10, 10 am to 12 pm UTC+3) in the upper part of the email template, informing the customer of the online work ahead. Such customer-oriented info is essential. 
• Finally, the layout has a section that directly links the recipient with customer service in case more information on the downtime break is needed, providing necessary contacts like email, phone, and a specific action button. 

Customization ideas

• To motivate customers to go shopping, you can issue a promo code offering a discount to compensate for the temporary inconvenience.
• Adding more personalization fields, for example, in the customer support section, is always a good idea. 
• We strongly recommend including a countdown timer for the website’s return to create urgency, motivating customers to look ahead for upgrades to check out new features. 

10 Funny Website Maintenance Email Subject Lines

Let’s look at the brighter side of web maintenance: we have developed ten cool downtime email subject lines. Please do not forget to include personalization with the recipient’s name—it is a must-have!

1. We Broke the Internet (Just Kidding—It’s Maintenance Time).
2. We’re Taking a Quick Nap—Back Soon!
3. Even Websites Need a Spa Day!
4. Good News: We’re Upgrading. More Good News: New Features!
5. A Little Fixing, a Lot of Awesome Coming Your Way!
6. We’ll Turn Our Downtime into Your Uptime!
7. Our Upgrades: A Short Pause for a Big Applause Later!
8. Making Things Better for You: Hang Tight!
9. Be Right Back: We’ll Be Better Than Ever!
10. We’re Polishing Our Pixels!

Take these subject lines for inspiration and feel free to fine-tune them for your own good! 

To Sum Up

We hope you’ve got the article’s essential message: website maintenance is inevitable, but customer dissatisfaction doesn’t have to be. Here’s what you can do: notify customers proactively, emphasize benefits, and spark a touch of creativity in your downtime messages. This way, you can turn website maintenance into a perfect opportunity to strengthen relationships and build trust.