When a customer assistant should hand off
It should answer what is already written down. The rest belongs with a person, with the conversation attached.
A customer assistant is useful when the same questions show up all week. Hours, what you offer, how to book, where to park, what the policy is if someone cancels. Those answers already live on the site or in a document the front desk uses. The assistant should read those, and only those.
It is not useful when it has to guess. A guessed price, a guessed medical or legal answer, or a promise the business cannot keep is worse than a slow reply from a person.
Questions it can take
If the answer is on a page, in the service list, or in a policy you are willing to stand behind, the assistant can give it. It should quote the source in plain language, not invent a friendlier version that changes the meaning. If the page says the kitchen closes at 9, that is the answer.
It can also do the next click. Send the booking link. Point to the right form. Collect a name and a time so the follow-up starts without the customer repeating themselves.
Questions it should pass on
Anything with a number that is not on a rate card. A complaint. A request that depends on who is working that day. A question the documents do not cover. In those cases the assistant should say so, and hand the thread to a person: the messages so far, the page the customer was on, and the contact details.
We write that line with the business. "I don't have that. Someone from the team will reply" is better than a confident wrong answer. The handoff goes to the inbox or the desk tool the team already watches, not to a new place they have to remember to check.
What we limit on purpose
The assistant does not get the whole internet, and it does not get private customer records unless the job is specifically to look up one booking the caller can prove is theirs. Access stays narrow. If a document changes, the answer changes with it. We do not keep a second copy of the policy that drifts out of date.
Staff who answer the same questions internally, from menus and procedures rather than from the public site, are a different job. That is the internal assistant.
If you want this on the site, book a free AI fit call. We will tell you which questions are ready to automate and which should stay with the team. See AI automation for how the work is scoped.