As of 13 August 2026, AI can answer delivery-area questions.

What to actually do

1. Use a tool built for this

   The route this page recommends

2. Hand it to a person

   Second choice

   A person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.

3. Do it yourself

   The distant third

   A chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.

   How to actually do it

   1. Open your current delivery map, postcode database or delivery policy and gather the postcode coverage, charges, minimum orders, exclusions and temporary closures.
   2. Put those rules into one maintained document or database, separating exact postcodes from broader postcode districts and adding the date of the latest update.
   3. Choose an AI support platform such as Botpress and create a delivery-area workflow that collects the customer's postcode before generating an answer.
   4. Paste the prompt into the workflow and connect the postcode field and delivery rules to the marked slots.
   5. Test the workflow with a covered postcode, an uncovered postcode, a nearby postcode that must not be inferred, an invalid postcode and a postcode affected by a restriction.
   6. Compare every test answer with your source delivery data, then publish the workflow only after correcting any answer that guesses or omits a charge or restriction.
   7. Set a named process for updating the source data whenever your delivery area, charges or temporary closures change, and route uncertain cases to a member of staff.

   Prompt

   Answer this customer's delivery-area question using only the delivery rules and postcode data below.
   
   Customer postcode: [POSTCODE]
   
   Delivery rules and postcode data:
   [PASTE YOUR CURRENT DELIVERY-AREA LIST, EXCLUSIONS, CHARGES, MINIMUM ORDER RULES AND ANY TEMPORARY CLOSURES]
   
   Instructions:
   - Normalise the postcode by ignoring capitalisation and extra spaces, but do not alter any letters or numbers.
   - Use an exact postcode match where one is available.
   - If the data only supports a postcode district or outward code, say that the answer is based on that area-level rule.
   - Do not infer coverage from nearby postcodes, towns or counties.
   - If the postcode is missing, invalid, outside the supplied data, or affected by an unclear rule, say: "I cannot confirm delivery to that postcode. A member of our team will check it for you." Do not guess.
   - If delivery is available, state any charge, minimum order or restriction shown in the data.
   - Give the answer in two short sentences and state which part of the supplied data supports it.

   Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.