I Caught AI Making Promises It Couldn’t Keep: 6 Rules I Now Use

In my last post, I tested 3 prompts on the same customer complaint. One thing kept bothering me afterwards: the response that sounded the most helpful was also the one making promises a company might not be able to keep.

So for Day 3, I focused on one question: how do you stop AI from guessing without making it useless?

Quick recap: a customer ordered headphones, the delivery is late, and they need them for an interview tomorrow.

The AI's first reply sounded caring and confident. It talked about a carrier investigation, a replacement and a refund. But nobody had confirmed any of that. No investigation had started, and no one had checked the refund policy.

Spotting the difference helped me understand what exactly to fix in a prompt.

Customer support involves names, addresses, order IDs and sometimes payment details. My rules:

Use only the information I've provided. If something is missing, tell me what needs to be verified. Don't claim any action has happened unless I confirm it. Don't promise refunds, replacements or delivery times unless the policy is provided.

Add this to any customer-support prompt and compare the output with and without it.

A good AI answer doesn't just sound right. It knows where its information ends. As I move toward building real AI solutions, that's the skill I want to practice most.

Next up: learning how to map a business process from start to finish before automating it.

Tools used: Claude Experiment: Hallucination risk and uncertainty handling in customer support

If you've worked with AI in customer support or business workflows, what's one rule you use to stop it from guessing? I'd love to hear it!