Catalogue verbs your customers never say aloud

Service catalogues decay when verbs inflate importance. Teams swapped "initiate" for "request" and saw fewer mistaken escalations within a week. The lesson was less about dictionaries and more about listening sessions that included frontline staff who answer chats.

We also saw gains when fulfilment teams co‑owned the promise text. Joint editing sessions slowed launches slightly but prevented the classic mismatch where marketing language promises what operations cannot measure. A simple side‑by‑side doc, not a new platform, carried the change.

The third paragraph is a candid limitation: not every item can be simplified without policy review. When legal holds are real, catalogue teams documented interim wording that signals delay honestly instead of hiding behind generic "pending" states. That honesty preserved trust while longer wording incubated.