Question handling
Why an assistant must never say a dish is safe for somebody
Every other page in this cluster is about efficiency, cost or conversion. This one is not. Allergen information is a legal duty for food businesses in most markets, the way it must be provided is prescribed rather than optional, and the consequence of a confident wrong answer is not a refund. This is the clearest case in the whole product for configuring an assistant to refuse.
What they are really asking
They are deciding whether it is safe to eat at your business, and they are hoping for a promise nobody typing on a website can give.
- is this gluten free
- does this contain nuts
- i have a dairy allergy, what can i eat
- is your kitchen nut free
- can you do a coeliac option
- what's in the sauce
- is this suitable for vegans
- do you have an allergen menu
- is there a risk of cross contamination
- my child is allergic to egg, what's safe for her
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| The allergen matrix, owned by whoever changes the menu | Dish by dish, against the allergens your jurisdiction requires you to declare. The ownership matters more than the format: a matrix that is not updated the same day a recipe changes is worse than none, because it is trusted. |
|---|---|
| Full ingredient lists, including the parts people forget | Sauces, dressings, marinades, stocks, the oil things are fried in, the garnish, the bread it is served with. Most allergen incidents involve a component nobody thought of as an ingredient. |
| A plain statement about your kitchen environment | Whether allergens are handled in the same space, whether separation is possible, and what you cannot guarantee. Written honestly, in your own words, because this is the sentence the assistant will need most often and it must be yours rather than improvised. |
| The process for a customer with an allergy | Tell us when you book, tell the server on arrival, ask for the manager, and what happens next. Publishing the process gives the assistant something correct and useful to say in place of an answer about a dish. |
| A phone number, and when it is answered | Because for this intent the phone number is the answer. Index it prominently and put it in the fallback message itself rather than relying on the assistant to include it. |
How to handle it
State the published information and stop there
The assistant may say what your allergen matrix records for a dish, with a citation. That is a factual statement about a document. It is not a statement about whether the dish is safe for the person asking, and the reply must not blur the two.
In practice the wording carries the distinction: our allergen information records this dish as containing milk and wheat is safe to say. This dish is fine for you is not.
Never convert information into an assurance
The matrix says a dish contains no declared nuts. The customer asks whether it is safe for their nut allergy. Those are different questions and only the first has a published answer. The second depends on preparation, on the kitchen, on the day, and on a severity only they and a person on site can weigh.
This is the single sentence this page exists for: published information is never a safety assurance, and an assistant must not perform the conversion.
Never characterise the kitchen
No statement that a kitchen is free of anything, no reassurance about separation, no estimate of risk. Cross contamination is a property of a working kitchen on a particular shift and nothing published on a website can speak for it. Quote your own environment statement and nothing further.
Configure this one as a refusal with a number
Set the caution level high so a weak match returns your fallback without reaching the model at all, and write that fallback specifically for this: it cannot advise on allergies, here is the number, please speak to the team when you book and again when you arrive.
This is the correct configuration even though it refuses questions that a more willing setting would answer. The asymmetry is the point: the cost of a refusal is a phone call, and the cost of a wrong answer is somebody in hospital.
When it stops being an answer
Every question that names a person's allergy
The presence of I, my child, my partner, or a named condition changes the question from what is in this to is this safe for somebody. There is no version of that second question an assistant should attempt, however good the material is.
Anything about the kitchen or cross contamination
Preparation surfaces, shared fryers, separate utensils, whether something can be made without an ingredient. All of these depend on what is happening in the kitchen at the time, and only somebody there can answer.
Any request for a substitution or a special preparation
Can you make it without the sauce, can you use a different oil, can you prepare it separately. These are operational commitments a kitchen makes shift by shift, and an assistant agreeing to one on their behalf has made a promise with a medical consequence.
How this one goes wrong
The reassuring answer
Somebody with a severe allergy asks whether a dish is safe. The assistant, reading a correct matrix, says it does not contain that allergen. The customer eats. The dish was prepared next to something that did, or the recipe changed on Tuesday, or the garnish was never on the matrix.
Everything else in this file is a cost measured in refunds, returns and reputation. This one is not, and it is the reason the correct configuration here is the refusal rather than the answer. Providing allergen information is a legal duty for food businesses in most markets and the specific requirements differ by jurisdiction, but no regime anywhere is satisfied by a chat widget guessing. State what is published, hand over the phone number, and let a person take responsibility for a decision that has to be somebody's.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a pharmacyIngredient questions at a pharmacy are clinical almost every time. Why the leaflet, the pharmacist and the prescriber are the only routes.
- For a fashion retailerTwo people ask about wool and want different answers. A composition label covers the main fabric and almost nothing else on the garment.
- For a garden centreCompost contents and pet safety arrive in the same words. Neither is answerable here: the label is the instruction, not a summary.
- For a restaurantState what your menu labelling says, never certify a dish, and route every allergy question to the kitchen by phone before the guest eats.
- For a salon or spaAn ingredient question is a safety question. The manufacturer holds the list, the patch test stands, and the assistant refuses.
Questions
- Can we let it answer allergen questions if our matrix is accurate?
- It can state what the matrix records, with a citation. It must not confirm that a dish is safe for a person or characterise the kitchen, because neither of those is in the document however accurate the document is.
- Does this remove the point of having it on a restaurant site?
- No. It answers opening hours, menus, prices, parking, group bookings and dietary categories as published, which is most of what arrives. Allergens are one narrow band, configured deliberately as a refusal.
- What should the fallback message say?
- Something short, warm and ending in a phone number: that it cannot advise on allergies, that the team can, and that they should mention it when booking and again on arrival. Put the number in the message itself rather than trusting composition.
- Is publishing the allergen matrix enough on its own?
- It is necessary and not sufficient. It has to be owned by whoever changes recipes, dated, and paired with an honest statement about the kitchen, otherwise the assistant is quoting a document that has quietly stopped being true.
Keep reading
- Handling technical troubleshootingThe dominant failure is an answer taken from the wrong release. A refusal beats a confident step list for software nobody is running.
- Handling setup and onboardingMost product material is written for somebody who already understands it. A first run guide has to be ordered, not merely complete.
- Handling compatibility questionsAnswerable only if you publish a list. Inferring compatibility is the failure, and the price of a wrong yes is a return and a refund.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.