Checkout Questions
Checkout questions are what the bot asks a customer while they're buying or booking — the delivery address, the phone number, the size, the name to engrave. It's how an order arrives complete instead of starting a chain of follow-up messages.
They are not the same thing as FAQs: an FAQ is something the bot answers; a checkout question is something the bot asks.
Where it is: sidebar → AI Configuration → Checkout Questions
Two kinds of question, in two different places
| Kind | Who gets asked | Where you set it up |
|---|---|---|
| Store questions | Everyone, on every purchase and every booking | This page |
| Product or service questions | Only whoever buys that product or books that service | Inside that product's or service's own form |
The bot always asks the store questions first, and then the ones belonging to the specific product or service.
Store questions
This page holds the questions that apply to your whole business: contact details, delivery address, a promo code. They are asked in every checkout, whatever the customer is buying.
The table:
| Column | What it shows |
|---|---|
| Reorder | The position number — the order in which the bot asks them |
| Question | The question the customer sees |
| Action | Edit the question or delete it |
The header shows the count (for example, "All Store Questions: 5") along with a filter button, Export and Add New Store Questions.
Adding a question
- Click Add New Store Questions.
- Type the question. Maximum 128 characters — one clear question, not a paragraph.
- Click Add.
The wording also has to be unique across your whole account: it can't match — ignoring case and any spaces at the start or end — any other checkout question you already have, even one that belongs to a specific product or service.
If you ask the Copilot to add a checkout question for you instead, it's allowed to write one up to 512 characters. If it writes one longer than 128 characters, you won't be able to open and re-save it from this page until you shorten it.
The order matters
The numbered column controls the sequence. Think about it from the customer's side: general first, specific after. Someone who's asked for an engraving before they've said where to ship the package usually answers worse.
A delivery address that blocks confirmation
For some accounts, ReadyChatAI Support can turn on a rule that stops an order from being confirmed until the customer has given a delivery address (a payment-method question can ride along, but it never blocks confirmation — cash on delivery still works fine). This is the one checkout question a customer can't be waved past, even with their approval. This isn't a toggle in your dashboard; the ReadyChatAI team sets it up per business, and it works by adding the address question to your store questions automatically. Once it's on, that question jumps ahead of every question you've written yourself, because collecting it late means more abandoned orders. Orders already in progress when it's turned on aren't affected.
If you write your own "what's your delivery address" store question instead, the bot still asks it — but a customer who skips it does not stop the order from confirming. Only the version ReadyChatAI Support sets up actually blocks confirmation.
Questions for one product or one service
These live where the product or the service does, not here. Open the product (or the service) and scroll to the block Info we ask when buying — for a service, Info we ask when booking.
There you can:
- Add questions that only apply to that item — a badge marks them "Only this product" / "Only this service".
- Drag them to reorder.
- Edit or delete them.
- See a phone preview on the right showing the sequence the customer will get, store questions included.
The same 128-character limit applies.
A notice in that block reminds you that your store questions are asked as well, with a link back to this page for editing them.
What happens in the conversation
During a conversational checkout, each unanswered item remains pending until the customer answers it. A customer can answer several at once; the assistant records what is clear and asks for what is still missing before showing the checkout summary.
ReadyChatAI may offer contact details or other saved answers it already has, but it must say what it proposes to reuse and ask for consent. It never silently copies answers from an earlier order or appointment. If questions remain after a retry, the assistant may offer to continue without them, but only the customer's explicit approval allows that checkout to proceed.
A customer's own answer to a checkout question is capped at 256 characters. If it runs longer, the bot asks them to shorten it and send it again rather than cutting it off silently.
Real estate businesses
If your account runs under the real estate setup, product checkout is switched off entirely: the bot won't start, take answers for, or confirm a product order at all. Store questions still apply normally to appointment and showing bookings (this page's sidebar label changes accordingly), but anything you wrote specifically for a product will never be asked, because the order flow that would ask it never starts.
Getting more out of it
- Ask only what you need to fulfil the order. Every extra question is one more chance for the customer to drop out mid-purchase.
- One question per question. "Address and phone?" gets you one answer with two things mixed in it; ask them separately.
- Anything general goes in the store questions. If you're repeating the same question inside ten products, it belongs here.
- Anything specific goes on the item. The engraving on a mug should not be asked to someone buying coffee.
- Reread them every so often. A question that made sense when you only shipped locally can be doing damage once you ship everywhere.