Getting the best answers

What the AI works from

Every reply is written from four things:

1. Your instructions: who the agent is and how it should behave.
2. Built in rules we add for you: only answer from knowledge, never invent prices or policies, be honest that handed over chats are not live, and never ask for details we already have.
3. Knowledge: the few passages from your sources that best match the question, picked fresh for every message.
4. Visitor details you choose to share, such as their plan or the page they are on.

Most problems with answers come from missing or out of date knowledge, not from instructions. When an answer is wrong, look at knowledge first.

Writing instructions

Keep instructions short and about behaviour: what your business is, who visitors are, and when the AI should involve people. Put facts in knowledge instead, because knowledge is searched for each question while instructions are read every time.

You are the support assistant for Acme, an online tool that helps small shops send invoices.
Visitors are usually shop owners, often in a hurry and not technical.
Solve the visitor's problem yourself whenever you reasonably can.
- Give clear step by step instructions from the reference material.
- If the question is vague, ask one short clarifying question first.
- If your first answer did not work, try another approach or ask what they see on screen.
- Only pass a chat to the team for things that need account access (billing, cancelling, changing the login email, deleting an account) or a fault you cannot work around.

Leave these out, they are handled for you

• Reply times and opening hours: set them in Passing chats to your team, and the AI uses them word for word.
• "This is not live chat" and "never say someone is joining now": built in.
• "Agree straight away if they ask for a person": built in.
• Asking for an email: the chat asks for it when needed, and the AI never asks if we already have one.

Knowledge that answers real questions

The single biggest improvement is a complete product guide, written from how your product actually works today. Your marketing pages rarely cover the questions people ask in chat.

What a good guide covers

• Getting started: signing up, the first steps, what each plan includes.
• Every feature, with step by step instructions using the exact button and menu names on screen.
• Limits: what each plan allows, file sizes and formats, what needs an upgrade.
• Account and billing: changing email or password, cancelling, your refund policy.
• Troubleshooting: one short question and answer for each problem people often hit.
• What the product does not do, so the AI can say no confidently instead of guessing.

Habits that keep answers right

• Write it from the source of truth. If you build software, generate the guide from your code or admin settings rather than from memory. Old help pages drift.
• Do not import old chat transcripts as knowledge. They contain answers that were right once, and other customers' names, links and details.
• Fix contradictions. If your FAQ says one thing and your guide another, the AI may quote either. Update or remove the old page.
• Keep it current. Refresh web page sources after you change them, and replace text sources when features change.
• Use plain headings and short sections. Each section is searched separately, so a section should make sense on its own.

Passing chats to your team

In the agent's Settings, Passing chats to your team decides when the AI hands a chat over and what it tells the visitor.

Whatever the style, a visitor who asks for a person is passed on straight away. The AI tells them it is not live chat, when to expect a reply, and that the reply will come in the chat, with an email if they are not online. The conversation is marked Needs you in the Inbox, with its own filter and a phone notification. The mark clears when someone replies, takes over or closes the chat.

Getting an email to reply to

With Ask visitors for their email turned on, the visitor types their question first. The chat then asks for their email as part of the conversation and sends the question once they have given it. People who have already written their question are far more likely to leave an address than people faced with a form.

If the setting is off and the AI hands a chat over, the chat shows a small card asking where to reply. If we already know the visitor's email, for example because your site signed them in with identify, nothing is asked.

Telling the AI about the visitor

Your site can attach details to each visitor with setMetadata or identify. Your team always sees them in the Inbox. The AI only sees the ones you tick in the agent's Settings, under What the AI knows about the visitor, plus the page they are on unless you turn that off.

// After your user signs in
RecursiveChat('setMetadata', {
  plan: 'Pro',
  account_age_days: 214,
  current_project: 'spring-catalogue',
});

Good fields to share are the ones that change the answer:

• Their plan, so the AI knows what they can use and whether a feature needs an upgrade.
• What they are working on, such as a project or order, so the AI does not ask for it.
• Where they are in your product, so instructions match the screen they see.

Recipes

Priority support for paid plans

Send the plan with setMetadata, tick that field in the agent's Settings, then add one line to the instructions:

When you pass a chat to the team: if the visitor's plan is Pro, tell them Pro support requests are prioritised. If they are on Free, mention that Pro members get priority support, without being pushy.

Billing always goes to people

Add billing to the list in your instructions of things only the team can do, and put your billing and refund policy in knowledge so the AI can explain it before handing over.

One agent per audience

If your marketing site and your product need different answers, add them as separate websites with their own agent, knowledge and tone.

Testing and improving

1. Collect twenty real questions from your inbox or old chats and try each one on the Test agent tab.
2. For each weak answer, add or fix the knowledge that should have answered it, then ask again.
3. Once a week, read the chats marked Needs you. Each one is either something only people can do, or a gap in knowledge you can fill.
4. Keep instructions short. If they grow past a dozen lines, move facts into knowledge.