FAQ from customer emails prompt: free ChatGPT template
Updated · By Robert Breen
Use this when you answer the same questions every week and want an FAQ for your website, your front desk or an AI email assistant. You paste recent customer emails and your facts. The AI finds the questions people actually ask, counts them, and answers each one only from your numbered facts. Questions your facts don't cover go on a separate list, because an FAQ answer you never checked will be repeated to every customer who reads it.
The prompt
Copy it into ChatGPT (or Claude, Gemini or Copilot) and replace every [BLANK] with your own details. It uses the four parts from Prompt Writing 101: Role, Context, Task and Format.
Role: You are building the customer FAQ for [BUSINESS]. Context: Below are our facts, numbered, and [NUMBER] recent customer emails. Find the questions customers ask most, in their own words. Answer only from the facts. If the facts don't answer a question, don't write an answer; list it under "Needs an answer from us". Task: Write the FAQ: the most-asked questions, each with how many emails asked it, a short answer from the facts, and the fact number it came from. Format: Questions in order of how often they were asked, each under 15 words. Answers under 50 words in a friendly, plain voice. After each answer, "(asked in 3 emails, fact 2)" for me to check and remove. Then the "Needs an answer from us" list. Our facts: [OUR FACTS] The emails, one per line: [CUSTOMER EMAILS]
Fill in the blanks
[BUSINESS]- Your business name and what you do.
[NUMBER]- How many emails you are pasting. Twenty to fifty gives a good picture.
[OUR FACTS]- Numbered facts: services, areas, prices, hours, how to book, policies. The answers can use nothing else.
[CUSTOMER EMAILS]- The questions from recent emails, one per line. Remove names, addresses and phone numbers first.
Example, filled in
A made-up example from the free lesson AI Email Responder: Draft Gmail Replies Automatically with n8n. Greenline Pest Control is the made-up pest control company in the AI email responder lesson. Its facts below are the ones its email agent uses; the eight emails are made up.
Role: You are building the customer FAQ for Greenline Pest Control, a family-run pest control company. Context: Below are our facts, numbered, and 8 recent customer emails. Find the questions customers ask most, in their own words. Answer only from the facts. If the facts don't answer a question, don't write an answer; list it under "Needs an answer from us". Task: Write the FAQ: the most-asked questions, each with how many emails asked it, a short answer from the facts, and the fact number it came from. Format: Questions in order of how often they were asked, each under 15 words. Answers under 50 words in a friendly, plain voice. After each answer, "(asked in 3 emails, fact 2)" for me to check and remove. Then the "Needs an answer from us" list. Our facts: 1. We service Maple Grove, Cedar Falls and Brookside. 2. General pest treatment (ants, spiders, roaches): $149 for the first visit, $89 for a follow-up. 3. We book Monday to Saturday, 8am to 5pm. 4. To book, reply with your address and two times that work. The emails, one per line: Do you come out to Brookside? How much to get rid of ants in my kitchen? Are you open Sundays? Is the spray safe for my cat? What does a second visit cost? Do you service Oak Hill? How do I book? What do you charge for spiders in the garage?
What a good answer looks like
- "How much does it cost?" first, asked in 3 emails, answered with $149 and $89 from fact 2.
- Service area and booking questions answered from facts 1 and 4, in customers' own words.
- "Is the spray safe for my cat?" under "Needs an answer from us," with no answer written.
- Oak Hill handled carefully: either flagged, or answered by listing only the three areas you serve.
How to check it before you use it
An AI draft can sound right and still say something you never told it. Use the habit from the Reply Faster lesson: check every promise, name, date and number against what you gave it before anything goes out.
- Check each answer against the fact number it cites. An answer with no fact behind it gets deleted, not edited.
- Never let a model answer pet, child or health safety questions from guesswork. Get those answers from the product label or a licensed professional.
- Recount the "asked in" numbers, then remove them before publishing.
- Once the FAQ is right, add it to your facts, so your replies and any email agent use the same answers.
Practice it in the free lesson
AI Email Responder: Draft Gmail Replies Automatically with n8n: Build an n8n agent that watches your Gmail, reads each new customer email, and writes a reply as a draft in the same thread, ready for you to check and send. You do every step yourself in a practice copy of n8n, and nothing touches your real accounts.
Also useful: Reply Faster: Turn a Messy Customer Email Thread into a Clear, Friendly Reply
Terms used here
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