As of 13 August 2026, AI can explain your returns policy to customers.

What to actually do

1. Hand it to a person

   The route this page recommends

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

2. Use a tool built for this

   Second choice

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 the latest approved returns policy and gather the current exclusions, time limits, delivery rules, refund method and customer-service contact route.
   2. Paste those materials into the prompt, replacing every bracketed slot, and remove any old or superseded policy text.
   3. Run the prompt in a chatbot and save the summary, standard answers, escalation list and supporting policy points.
   4. Compare every drafted answer with the approved policy, correcting any wording that adds a promise, fee, deadline, exception or legal conclusion not present in the source.
   5. Test the chatbot with straightforward questions and edge cases involving faulty, damaged, personalised, hygiene-sensitive, late and disputed items.
   6. Send every failed or ambiguous test to the named human route, then publish the approved answers in the customer chat or help centre.
   7. When the policy changes, replace the old source, rerun the test questions and remove the previous version from the chatbot.

   Prompt

   You are a customer-service assistant for [BUSINESS NAME]. Explain the returns policy below in plain British English. Use only the supplied policy and do not invent terms, deadlines, fees, legal rights or exceptions. If the policy does not answer a question, say that a member of the team must check it. Do not decide whether an individual return is legally required or promise a refund. Ask for the minimum information needed, such as order date, product type and reason for return, without asking for full payment details. For each answer, state the relevant condition and the next action. Escalate damaged, faulty, unsafe, personalised, hygiene-sensitive, gift, late or disputed returns to [CONTACT ROUTE]. Keep answers concise and polite.
   
   Returns policy:
   [PASTE THE CURRENT RETURNS POLICY]
   
   Additional product exclusions and operational rules:
   [PASTE CURRENT EXCLUSIONS, TIME LIMITS, DELIVERY RULES, REFUND METHOD AND ESCALATION RULES]
   
   Now produce:
   1. A short customer-facing summary.
   2. Answers to these questions: How do I return an item? How long do I have to return it? Who pays return postage? When will I receive my refund?
   3. A list of questions that must be escalated to a person.
   4. A test table with the customer question, the answer, and the exact policy point supporting it.

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