Replying to garden and lawn enquiries with an AI tool

Garden enquiries repeat. "Do you cover my suburb?" "Can you start next week?" "Is the first visit free?" You've typed the answers so often you could do it asleep. That's where a drafting tool pays off.

The aim isn't a fancy reply. It's a clear one, sent while the customer is still interested.

Build a fact sheet first

The tool can't know your answers. So write them down once, in a plain note, and paste that note in each time.

A useful fact sheet for a garden business holds:

• The suburbs or towns you cover
• Which services you do, and which you don't
• How you handle quotes (free visit, photo quote, paid assessment)
• How soon you can usually start
• How you handle rain
• How you want to be paid
• Your phone, email and hours

Keep prices off it unless they're fixed, like a standard call-out fee. If you list one, check it's current every time. A tool that has your old price will use it.

Ask for the draft in a tight shape

Give the tool the question and the fact sheet, then tell it what you want. Something like:

Here is a customer question and my business facts. Write a friendly reply in plain English, under one hundred words. Use only the facts I gave. If the question needs something not in my facts, say "I need to check" instead of guessing.

That last line matters. A chat tool will sometimes fill a gap with an invented answer that's stated as fact, which is what people call a hallucination.¹ Asking it to admit gaps is worth doing. It won't make the draft right, so you still check it.

Keep the customer's details out

Don't paste the whole message with the name, phone number and street address still in it. Take those out first. Put them back when you send.

The OAIC, Australia's privacy regulator, recommends keeping personal information out of publicly available chatbots.² Outside Australia, check your own regulator. The page on private details lists where to look.

For most enquiries you don't need the details anyway. "Customer asks if we cover a suburb, and whether we can start next week" is plenty.

Check before you send

Hold the draft up against your fact sheet. Inaccurate or false output is a known problem with these systems, according to the OAIC.²

Hunt for:

• A day, time or price you never gave
• A promise about the result of the work
• A service you don't offer
• A tone that isn't yours, such as a long gushing opener

Cut anything you can't vouch for. A short reply you stand behind beats a long one that commits you to something.

Make it sound like you

Chat tools tend to write smoothly and a little stiffly. Paste in a couple of replies you wrote yourself and say "match this tone". Then read the result aloud. If you'd never say it at a gate, change it.

Keep the versions you like. Before long you'll have a small set for the usual questions: coverage, availability, quote visits, rain, payment. Each one starts from your words, not the tool's.

Where to stop

Some enquiries need a phone call, not a draft. An upset customer, a complaint about damage, a dispute over an invoice. Ring them. Don't use a tool to soften a conversation that needs your voice.

The tool can also help you turn a yes into a clear job description. That's covered in writing quote and scope wording.