Teach your AI employee what your business knows

A new staff member is only as good as their first week of training. Nobody would put a new hire at the counter without telling them the menu, the opening hours or what to do when a customer is upset. An AI employee is the same. It answers from your business's own knowledge, so the better that knowledge, the better the answers.

How it answers

When a customer writes on WhatsApp, Instagram, Facebook or your website chat, the AI employee looks through the knowledge you gave it, finds the parts that match the question and writes a reply from them. If it cannot find the answer, it should say so and bring in a person, not guess. That is the habit this guide helps you build.

It does not browse the internet for answers about your shop, and it does not invent details. It works from your documents, the instructions you give it about tone and limits, and the conversation in front of it. That is why the rest of this guide is mostly about what you write down.

What to teach it

Start with the questions your staff answer ten times a day. Most businesses need these:

1. What you sellYour menu, services, courses or product list, with sizes, options and what is in stock. Keep the details, including what each item costs, in your own documents so they stay in one place you control.
2. Hours and locationOpening hours, holidays, address, parking and a map link. Update these before every festival.
3. PoliciesReturns, refunds, cancellations, delivery areas and times, and what happens if an order is late.
4. FAQsWrite down the real questions customers ask, in their words, with your best answer. "Do you have Jain options?" "Is there a demo class?" "Can I pay at delivery?"

Add knowledge in Hey Tomo under Knowledge. Short, clear documents work better than one huge file. One topic per document makes it easy to update later.

Give it your tone

A family restaurant, a dental clinic and a streetwear brand should not sound the same. Tell your AI employee how to speak:

• Warm or formal? "Hi Rohan!" or "Good afternoon, Mr Iyer"?
• Short replies, or a little more detail?
• Which name to use for the business, and how to sign off.

Give it two or three example replies that sound like your best staff member. Examples teach tone faster than rules.

What it should never answer

Every business has questions only a person should handle. Write them down as clear limits:

• Medical, legal or financial advice. A clinic's AI employee can share timings and book a slot, but it should never suggest a diagnosis or a medicine.
• Promises outside your policy. No special discounts, refunds or delivery dates that your knowledge does not cover.
• Payments. It should never say a payment has gone through. Only your payment records can confirm that.
• Anything it does not know. "Let me check with the team" is always better than a confident wrong answer.

Hand over to a person

A good handover is what makes customers trust an AI employee. Decide when it should pass the chat to your team:

1. When the customer asks for a personAlways, at once, with no argument.
2. When the customer is upsetComplaints, a late order, a wrong item.
3. When the question is on the "never" listOr the knowledge has no answer.
4. When money is involvedRefunds, disputes and payment problems.

The chat lands in your Inbox with the conversation so far, so your staff do not ask the customer to repeat themselves. Tell the customer what happens next, for example "I have passed this to our team. Someone will reply within the hour, between 10 am and 8 pm."

Test it before customers see it

Before you switch the AI employee on for real customers, play the customer yourself. Ask it your ten most common questions, in the way customers actually type them, with spelling mistakes and Hinglish. Then try the hard ones:

• A question your knowledge does not cover. Does it say it does not know, and offer a person?
• An angry message about a late order. Does it hand over quickly?
• A request for a discount. Does it stay inside your policy?
• "Can I talk to a human?" Does it pass the chat on at once?

Fix what you find in the knowledge, the tone or the limits, then test again. It is much easier to fix a wrong answer before a customer sees it.

Review chats every week

Set aside twenty minutes a week to read through recent conversations in the Inbox. Look for three things:

• Questions it could not answer. Add the answer to your knowledge.
• Answers that were right but sounded off. Adjust the tone or add an example.
• Chats that should have been handed over sooner. Add the case to your handover rules.

After a few weeks, you will find the list of gaps gets short.

Keep knowledge fresh

Old knowledge is worse than none, because the AI employee will repeat it confidently. Whenever something changes, change the document the same day: a new dish, a holiday, a new delivery area, a policy update. Remove anything seasonal when the season ends. A simple habit helps: whoever changes the signboard also changes the knowledge.