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As of 13 August 2026, AI can answer questions about your delivery charges.
Most people should hand this to a purpose-built tool.
Can you do it?
15 minutesto a draft.
30 minutesto something you’d act on.
Cost, all in£0
Skill neededpower-user
Who has to check ityou
What the alternative costsA purpose-built AI support product such as Tidio Lyro answers customer questions from your business content through website live chat.
If this goes wrong: a customer is given the wrong delivery charge, so you correct the answer, refund the difference or pass the case to staff.
What to actually do
Use a tool built for this
The route this page recommends
Hand it to a person
Second choiceA person who owns the outcome does this end to end, worth it when the failure is dear.
Do it yourself
The distant thirdA chat interface, power-user skill, and roughly 30 minutes until you can act on the result.
How to actually do it
- Open your current delivery price list, carrier rules, destination coverage and free-delivery policy, and remove superseded versions.
- Paste those documents into a chatbot or support-agent builder, labelled by document and effective status so the source of each rule is clear.
- Add your escalation contact, the cases that need staff review, and the instruction not to calculate an order-specific charge without checkout data.
- Use the prompt with realistic questions covering domestic delivery, international delivery, free-delivery thresholds, excluded postcodes, returns and disputed charges.
- Compare every drafted answer with the current price list and policy, then correct the source documents where the chatbot has used an old or conflicting rule.
- Publish the assistant only after testing it on missing-information questions and confirming that it sends uncertain or order-specific cases to staff.
Prompt
You are a customer-service assistant for [BUSINESS NAME]. Answer questions about delivery charges using only the information supplied below. Do not invent rates, destinations, delivery times, thresholds, exclusions, discounts or carrier rules. If the information is missing, conflicting, expired or depends on the customer's exact order, say that clearly and direct the customer to [CONTACT METHOD]. Distinguish between a published delivery charge and a charge that must be calculated by our checkout or order system. Give the answer in plain British English, state the currency as shown in the source, and keep it concise. Never promise a refund, exception or delivery date unless the source explicitly allows it. If a customer disputes a charge, ask for their order number without requesting unnecessary personal data and escalate it to a member of staff. Business information: [PASTE CURRENT DELIVERY PRICE LIST] [PASTE DELIVERY POLICY AND EXCLUSIONS] [PASTE DESTINATIONS, SERVICE LEVELS AND ORDER THRESHOLDS] [PASTE DISCOUNT, MEMBERSHIP OR FREE-DELIVERY RULES] [PASTE ESCALATION CONTACT AND HOURS] Customer question: [PASTE CUSTOMER'S QUESTION]
Open it prefilled in ChatGPT or Claude, or copy it into Gemini, which takes no prefill link.
What it gets wrong
- It cannot know a live carrier quote, basket contents or postcode-specific surcharge unless you connect it to the relevant system.
- It cannot reliably detect that a price list is out of date unless you maintain and label the source documents.
- It cannot decide whether to make a goodwill exception without your policy or a member of staff.
- It cannot take responsibility for a wrong charge displayed to a customer.
Even on a YES, the friction has a name: real time truth, context depth and stakes of error.
How we scored this
Five axes, each scored nought to two by hand: ten means AI carries the task cleanly, and the thresholds that turn a total into YES, PARTLY or NO are published in the methodology. Each axis name links to its definition.
| Axis | Score (0–2) |
|---|---|
| Output | 2 |
| Inputs | 2 |
| Verification | 1 |
| Liability | 1 |
| Effort delta | 2 |
| Total | 8 / 10 |
The methodology and its thresholds are published in full.
FAQ
- Can AI tell customers how much delivery costs?
- Yes, for published delivery charges and rules that you give it. It should not guess an order-specific or carrier-generated charge, and should send that question to checkout or staff.
- Can a chatbot calculate delivery charges?
- It can apply clear rate rules supplied in your documents, such as destination and order thresholds. For live carrier prices, postcode surcharges or basket-specific charges, it needs a reliable connection to the system that holds those figures.
- How do I train AI to answer delivery questions?
- Give it one maintained source containing your current rates, destinations, exclusions, thresholds, discounts and escalation rules. Test its answers against real scenarios and instruct it to say when information is missing rather than inventing a charge.
- Will AI give customers the wrong delivery price?
- It can if the source information is out of date, contradictory or incomplete, or if the answer needs live order data. Keep one current price source, test common cases and require staff escalation for anything the chatbot cannot verify.
Nearby answers
Assessed by gpt-5.6-luna (gpt-5.6-luna) on 2026-08-13, second-checked by an independent model. Wrong somewhere? Email [email protected] and it gets re-checked.
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