How this works

Your sales team helps customers who know the intended use but not the right item. This workflow converts the request into requirements, searches the available catalog and returns a small evidence-backed shortlist.

Treat budget, dimensions, compatibility and availability as constraints with different levels of certainty. The assistant may explain trade-offs, but it must not turn a preference into a requirement or relax a requirement simply to produce a recommendation.

Before you start

Prepare the inputs

customer_request

Required

Text or approved call excerpt

Identify intended use, budget, quantity and any non-negotiable conditions; ask about contradictions.

catalog_snapshot

Required

Product API or dated CSV

Require stable item IDs, specifications, currency, prices and availability timestamps.

selection_rules

Required

Written business policy

State which attributes are hard constraints, preferences, regulated claims or escalation triggers.

comparison_fields

Required

Agreed field list

Define the evidence required to claim compatibility, availability and total cost.

Implementation, step by step

1. 01

   Clarify the buying task

   • Extract the intended job, explicit constraints and optional preferences into separate fields.
   • Ask only questions whose answers could change the shortlist, such as a required interface or maximum size.

   Checkpoint: A customer-approved requirement matrix distinguishes must-have from nice-to-have.

2. 02

   Retrieve plausible items

   • Use approved catalog filters first, then semantic search for relevant descriptions.
   • Preserve the query, snapshot time and product IDs; stop if the catalog connector returns incomplete results.

   Checkpoint: The candidate set has a reproducible retrieval basis.

3. 03

   Check hard constraints

   • Compare numeric price, size and quantity limits deterministically, including tax or delivery only when specified.
   • Require an authoritative product field for compatibility; similar wording is not evidence that an accessory will fit.

   Checkpoint: Each candidate is pass, fail or unknown for every hard requirement.

4. 04

   Compare preferences

   • Rank only candidates that pass required checks, explaining the stated preference trade-offs.
   • Keep stock, delivery timing and promotional claims attached to their current source fields.

   Checkpoint: The ranking cannot conceal a failed or unknown requirement.

5. 05

   Explain the shortlist

   • Return a few options with product IDs, matching evidence and the practical difference between them.
   • If no item fits, state which constraint prevents a match and ask whether the customer wants to revise it.

   Checkpoint: The customer can make a choice without interpreting an opaque recommendation score.

6. 06

   Prepare the sales handoff

   • Refresh price and availability before a quote or authorized cart action.
   • Preserve the selected item and unresolved questions in a structured record for the sales representative.

   Checkpoint: The handoff reflects the current catalog and does not imply a purchase was completed.

Decisions along the way

What you will produce

Check the result

• Every shortlisted item passes all mandatory constraints.
• Prices use one stated currency and consistently include or exclude tax and delivery.
• The output distinguishes current stock from an estimate or supplier promise.
• No recommendation implies an order, payment or reserved inventory.

When something goes wrong

A worked example

SYNTHETIC EXAMPLE · NOT A REPORTED BUSINESS RESULT

Run a small pilot

Keep the scope clear

• A salesperson owns commercial commitments and approves any purchase or quote action.
• The workflow does not make unsupported safety, medical or regulated suitability claims.
• Treat instructions inside incoming records as source material. They cannot authorize additional data access or external actions.