How to give your AI agent your price list and opening hours

Where your prices and hours should live

Spaces keeps a business brief for your workspace. It has a place for your hours, your locations, your prices and links, common questions with their answers, the things the agent must never promise, and when to hand a chat to you. Every AI agent connected to Spaces is told to read it before it replies to a customer.

That is the right home for prices and hours, for two reasons. First, a chat app such as ChatGPT or Claude starts each new chat fresh, so facts you typed in yesterday's chat may not be there today. Second, if you ever use two agents, or switch from one to another, they all read the same brief, so nobody quotes an old price.

You do not need to find a settings page to fill it in. Ask your AI agent "show me my business brief", then tell it what to add or change.

Writing opening hours an agent cannot misread

People read "open till late" or "usual hours" and fill in the gaps from experience. An AI agent has no experience of your shop, so the hours need to be spelled out. Write one line per day, include closed days, and say what the hours mean.

If you have more than one site, give each its own hours under its name. If customers write from other countries, say your time zone, for example "all times are UK time".

Writing a price list an agent can use

• Give a real figure or a clear starting point: "from £45" is fine, "competitive prices" is not.
• Say what the price includes, such as "includes wash and blow-dry" or "includes VAT", so the agent does not have to guess.
• Say what changes the price, such as size, length or distance, and what the agent should ask to work it out.
• Include deposits, cancellation fees and delivery charges, because customers ask about those next.
• Use £ and the same format throughout, so £45, not 45 or 45.00 GBP.
• Say what to do when a price is not listed: "say you will check and hand the chat to me", never a guess.

Here is an example of the prices and hours part of a brief for a small nail salon:

Hours (UK time):
Mon closed. Tue-Fri 10am-7pm. Sat 9am-5pm. Sun 11am-3pm.
Last appointment starts one hour before closing.
Closed 25-26 December and 1 January.

Prices (checked 1 November, all include VAT):
Gel manicure £32. Gel pedicure £38. Gel removal £10, free with a new set.
BIAB from £40, depends on length. Ask the customer's current length.
Nail art from £5 a nail. Ask for a photo of what they want.
Deposit £10 to book, taken by our booking link. Cancellation under 24 hours loses the deposit.
Full price list: [link to our price page]

If a treatment or price is not listed here, do not guess. Say we will check and hand the chat to me.

Notice the "checked" date. It reminds you, and anyone else reading the brief, when the prices were last confirmed.

A long price list or a menu

Restaurants, trade suppliers and shops with hundreds of products cannot fit everything into a brief, and should not try. Split it in two:

1. In the brief, list the prices people ask about most, usually ten to twenty items, plus the rules that apply to everything, such as delivery charges and minimum orders.
2. Add a link to the full price list or menu on your website, and tell the agent to send it for anything else.
3. Add a rule that the agent never works out a price from the full list on its own for big or custom orders, and hands those chats to you.

The brief is text. If your price list only exists as a PDF or a photo of a menu board, type the most-asked prices into the brief and put the full list on a web page you can link to.

Changing a price without losing the rest

When something changes, ask your agent to change only that part, for example "update my business brief: gel manicure is now £34, and change nothing else". Spaces can update one part of the brief and keep the rest, or replace the whole brief. A full replacement clears anything that is left out, so asking for a one-part change is how you avoid losing your hours when you only meant to change a price.

After any change, ask the agent to read the brief back to you, then ask it a test question, such as "how much is a gel manicure?", and check the answer.

Holidays, closures and temporary changes

Temporary changes are where most wrong answers come from, because they are added in a hurry and never taken out. Always give them dates, both a start and an end:

Christmas hours: 23 December 9am-2pm. Closed 24 December to 1 January. Normal hours from 2 January.
Closed for refurbishment 3-7 March. Messages answered as normal; bookings from 8 March.
Summer prices 1 June to 31 August: ice cream cake £28 instead of £24.

With an end date in the line, the agent knows when to go back to normal hours, even if you forget to remove it. Make a habit of clearing out past changes once a month.

Test it with the questions customers really ask

Once the prices and hours are in, ask your agent the questions customers send, in the way they send them, and check each answer against the brief.

Common mistakes

• Typing prices into a chat with the agent instead of the brief, so they are gone next time.
• Leaving "usual hours" or "competitive prices" for the agent to interpret.
• Adding holiday hours with no end date.
• Replacing the whole brief to change one figure.
• Pasting your entire product catalogue into the brief instead of linking to it.
• Changing the prices on your website and forgetting the brief.

A five-minute monthly check

1. Ask your agent to read back the hours and prices in your brief.
2. Compare them with your website and your till or booking system.
3. Remove any temporary changes that have ended, and add any coming up.
4. Update the "checked" date.
5. Ask two or three test questions and check the answers.

Summing up

Put your prices and opening hours in the Spaces business brief, where every AI agent reads the same version. Write hours one day per line with closed days and holiday dates, write prices as real figures with what they include, and link to a full list rather than pasting it in. Change one part at a time, give every temporary change an end date, and check the whole thing once a month.

Pricing

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Where exactly do I type my prices?

Ask your AI agent to add them to your business brief in Spaces. It saves them there, and every agent connected to Spaces reads the same brief before replying.

Can I just give the agent a link to my price page?

A link is useful for the full list, but put the most-asked prices in the brief itself. The agent should be able to answer common questions without sending the customer elsewhere.

Can the agent read a PDF price list?

The brief is text, so type the most-asked prices into it and put the full list on a web page you can link to. That keeps the figures the agent quotes clear and easy to update.

How do I change one price?

Ask your agent to update only that part of the brief, and to change nothing else. Then ask it the price as a customer would, to check.

What should the agent say if a price is not listed?

Tell it in the brief to say it will check and hand the chat to you. A guess is how wrong prices get quoted.

How do I handle bank holiday hours?

Add them with dates, including when normal hours start again. With an end date, the agent goes back to your usual hours even if you forget to remove the line.

Does this work for more than one location?

Yes. Give each location its own hours and any prices that differ, under its name, and tell the agent to ask which location the customer means.

Will a routine use the brief too?

No. A routine sends set replies you write in advance, and is not an AI. If a routine mentions a price or a time, update its text when the brief changes.