Discount codes in AI chat: what can your assistant promise?

Imagine this scenario: a customer asks whether a discount code also works on sale items. The assistant says yes. The customer fills their basket, then discovers at checkout that the code does not apply. Support now has to explain a contradiction created before the order was placed.

Before a sales campaign, test questions about discounts too. Chat can explain approved rules, point to the terms and identify what needs checking. Confirming a discount for a particular purchase, however, must rely on the store's current calculation.

A product's sale price and a discount code are different

PrestaShop distinguishes catalog discounts from cart rules. One changes the displayed product price; the other applies during purchase. See the official PrestaShop documentation.

For an assistant, this creates a practical boundary: a sale price in a product feed alone does not prove that an extra code can be applied. Likewise, a free-shipping announcement does not establish that every carrier and destination qualifies. Each claim needs its own supporting information.

Prepare one complete record for each promotion

Before launch, the campaign owner should prepare a short record for both support and the assistant's administrator. Copying an advertising slogan is not enough. Our editorial checklist is:

• the exact code and whether the offer is public or personal,
• start and end dates, including times and time zone,
• eligible products or variants and explicit exclusions,
• the minimum purchase and how it is calculated, including shipping and tax,
• rules for combining offers and limits on usage,
• a link to the full terms, a responsible person and the review date.

The PrestaShop cart-rule schema also contains separate fields for validity, minimum amounts and usage counts. Check your own store's settings; a campaign name cannot replace them.

Do not add personal, single-use codes to the assistant's public knowledge. Public chat should explain rules, not distribute benefits intended for a particular customer.

A worked example: correct arithmetic, incorrect promise

The following numbers and code are fictional examples, not an offer from Informio or another store. A product costs €80. UKAZKA10 gives 10% off eligible goods on purchases of at least €100 excluding shipping, and excludes already discounted items.

The calculation 80 × 0.9 = 72 is mathematically correct. But the customer has not met the minimum and may have an excluded product in the basket. Saying “you will pay €72” would be an incorrect promise.

Example answer: UKAZKA10 applies from €100 of eligible goods excluding shipping, and does not cover already discounted items. An €80 product on its own does not meet the minimum. Enter the code in your basket to check whether it applies to the whole purchase and to confirm the final amount.

With a mixed basket, you also need to know which items count towards the minimum. If the rules do not say, the assistant must not invent an interpretation.

An announcement does not establish that an offer is active

Google's Promotions specification separates display dates from effective dates and uses a time zone. We recommend the same care in chat: a visible announcement is not proof that a code currently works.

Check answers both before and after the campaign. An old PDF, a product page and a manual note may disagree. Resolve conflicts by identifying the authoritative source, correcting the other material and verifying that the update was successfully processed. Saving new text alone does not prove the assistant already uses it.

When checkout rejects a code

Without verified access to the basket, the assistant does not know the exact reason for rejection. It can offer a rules check, but should not claim the customer has already used the code or belongs to the wrong group. Do not ask for passwords, payment details or a full screenshot of the order.

For an initial check, the public promotion name, affected product and error wording without personal details are usually enough. Handle personal codes through an approved support channel. If an account or specific basket needs inspection, pass the case to an authorized member of staff without promising an exception.

Test the boundaries, not just a successful purchase

1. Ask about the code just before it starts and after it expires. The answer must not describe the offer as currently active.
2. Test a purchase below the minimum and exactly at the threshold. Check the correct calculation basis.
3. Add an excluded variant and an already discounted product. Chat must not extend the rule to the entire catalog.
4. Combine two codes. Without an explicit rule, the assistant must not promise that discounts stack.
5. Simulate missing information or an unfamiliar error. Expect an acknowledgement of uncertainty and a concrete next step.

Compare the result with a reference basket in a test environment, not with how convincing the answer sounds. Before launch, have support review it too: could an employee give the same answer using the same material?

Getting started with Informio

Informio can work with prepared web content, documents and manually entered information. An administrator can add instructions and test questions in Quality Lab. This does not automatically connect it to a live basket or validate personal discount codes. That integration needs to be designed and verified separately.

Choose one upcoming promotion, write down its terms and test the situations above. To try Informio with your own material, arrange a consultation about an AI assistant for your online store. We will start with what it may tell customers and what your store must confirm.