“According to our information” sounds reassuring and proves nothing. For a price, deadline or service condition, customers need to know whether the answer came from a current page, an old PDF or a guess.
A useful source answers three questions
- Which page or document was used?
- How current is it?
- Which passage supports this claim?
Put the citation close to the claim, not in a dumping ground below a long response. A title may be enough for opening hours. Contract or pricing answers need the original source and sometimes human confirmation.
| Answer | Display | Boundary |
|---|---|---|
| Opening hours | Page title | answer directly |
| Product detail | Title and date | clarify conflicts |
| Price or contract | Original source | no free invention |
| No source | Say so | offer handoff |
Measure provenance rather than decorating answers
Track answers produced without a source, age of documents used and links customers open. A 100 percent citation rate is meaningless if every answer points to the homepage.
Our article on keeping service knowledge current covers ownership. For internal material, permission-aware RAG prevents the citation itself becoming a leak.
Sources
FAQ
Does every answer need a link?
Not necessarily, but verifiable business claims should have retrievable provenance.
Is a document title enough?
For important claims, freshness and the relevant passage are more useful.
What if no source exists?
State the uncertainty and avoid inventing the missing detail.
Can internal sources be shown?
Only when the user has access; even a title may be confidential.