Answer Customers Faster with AI · Lesson 2 of 7

Write your answer bank

25 minutes. Write each answer once, correctly. Every draft after this gets its facts from here.

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An AI assistant is very good at writing. It is not good at knowing your prices. If you don't give it the facts, it fills the gap with something that sounds right. That's the single biggest risk in using AI for customer replies, and the answer bank is how you close it.

The answer bank is a plain document. One question per entry. The real answer, in your words. Where the fact came from. And what you never promise. That's it.

Use the Answer Bank template. Each entry has six parts:

• The question, in the customer's words (from Lesson 1).
• The short answer. One or two sentences, the way you'd say it on the phone.
• The facts. Prices, hours, areas, policies, with numbers. Write "service call fee: $89, waived if we do the repair" rather than "small fee."
• What to ask first (for "depends" questions). "Ask for the brand and age of the water heater, and whether it's gas or electric."
• Never promise. The things a reply must not say. "Never promise a same-day arrival time. Say we'll call back within an hour to confirm."
• Source and date. Where the fact lives (price sheet, policy binder, insurance list) and when you last checked it.

Here's one of Rosa's, from our fictional Maple Street Plumbing:

> Question: Do you charge for estimates? > Short answer: Estimates for replacements and remodels are free. For repairs, there's a service call fee, which we waive if you go ahead with the repair. > Facts: Free estimates: water heaters, boilers, remodels. Service call fee for repairs: $89 (Mon to Fri, 8 to 5), waived if the repair is done on that visit. > What to ask first: Is this a repair or a replacement? > Never promise: A price for a repair before a technician has seen it. > Source and date: 2026 price sheet, checked by Dana, Oct 9, 2026.

When AI replies go wrong, it's usually not the grammar. It's a promise nobody made. "We'll be there by noon." "That's covered under warranty." "Your insurance will pay for that." "Full refund, no problem."

For each question, ask yourself: what's the most expensive thing someone could say here by mistake? Write that in "never promise."

A few that apply to nearly every business:

• Arrival times and deadlines you don't control
• Prices for work no one has seen
• Warranty or guarantee coverage for a specific case
• Insurance coverage (only the insurer can say what's covered)
• Refunds, credits or discounts (Lesson 4 sends these to a person)
• Legal or medical advice of any kind

Writing 20 entries from scratch is the slow way. Here's the faster way. Paste your question list (no customer details) into your AI assistant with this prompt:

> I run [type of business] in [town]. Below are the 20 questions our customers ask most. For each one, draft an answer bank entry with these parts: Question, Short answer, Facts, What to ask first, Never promise, Source and date. > > Important: you do not know our prices, hours, policies or service area. Do not guess any fact. Wherever a fact is needed, write [FILL IN: what is needed] instead. For "Never promise," suggest what could go wrong if a reply over-promised. > > [paste your questions]

You'll get back a draft with brackets everywhere. Good. That's the point. Now you fill in every bracket from your real price sheet, policy binder or memory. Any number that came from the AI rather than from you gets deleted.

• One owner. Pick one person who keeps the answer bank up to date. At Maple Street, it's Rosa, and Dana signs off on prices.
• Date every fact. When a price changes, update the entry and the date.
• Review it monthly, or any time prices, hours or policies change. Put it on the calendar now.
• Keep it in one place. One shared document, not five copies. Later lessons paste or upload it into your AI tool, and you'll re-upload it whenever it changes.

The answer bank goes into your AI tool, and into every draft. So it holds only what you'd happily tell any customer who asked. No customer names. No employee home numbers. No door codes, alarm codes or passwords. No internal margins or "lowest price we'll go to." If you wouldn't print it on a flyer, it doesn't go here.

Fill in at least your top 10 entries in the Answer Bank template, using the AI prompt above to speed up the first draft. Every fact must come from you, not the AI. Fill in "never promise" for every entry, even the easy ones.

Check it worked

Pick three entries at random and ask: "Would I be comfortable if a customer read this exact entry?" and "Is every number on here something I checked myself?" If the answer to either is no, fix that entry.

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Next: the facts are right. Now make the drafts sound like you.

→ Lesson 3: Teach it your voice, and what stays out of the chat

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