How to prepare your help docs before using AI customer support

An assistant that answers customers from your help documents is only as good as those documents. If a page is out of date, the answer will be too, and it will sound confident.

The work that matters happens before you turn anything on.

1. List your most common questions

Look through the last month of email and chat. Write down the ten questions that come up most: order status, returns, how to reset a login, pricing, setup. These are what the assistant will meet first.

2. Check each answer is true today

For every common question, find the page or reply that answers it and read it as a customer would. Is it current? Does it match what you actually do? Fix or remove anything that doesn't, because an old policy page will produce old answers.

3. Write the missing answers

If a common question has no written answer, write one now, in the words you would use in a reply. Short and specific beats long and general.

4. Decide what must go to a person

Make a clear list of what an assistant should never settle alone. For most teams that is refunds above a limit, account or billing changes, complaints, legal questions and anything where the customer is upset. Write the rule down.

5. Make hand-offs useful

When a conversation moves to a person, the customer shouldn't have to repeat themselves. Decide what a hand-off should carry: who the customer is, what they asked, what was already said and what is still open.

6. Plan how you will correct it

Decide who reads the assistant's replies, how often, and how they fix a wrong answer. Corrections should change the source, not only the single reply.

Where Tendo will fit

Tendo will answer email and chat from your help docs and past replies, hand tricky ones to your team with a summary, and ask you to approve what it learns. Tendo isn't built yet; join the early-access list to be invited as places open.