Best practices for using instructions and custom tone of voice to influence advanced AI agent responses

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Add-on | AI agents - Advanced

For equivalent functionality for AI agents - Essential, see Best practices for using instructions to influence AI agent responses.

Instructions and custom tone of voice let you control AI agent behavior in ways beyond the default persona options. This article discusses best practices for creating effective instructions and custom tone of voice, and gives you examples of good and bad instructions.

The following video gives you an overview of creating instructions and custom tone of voice:

Deploying instructions and custom tone of voice for AI agents (3:57)

This article contains the following topics:

Best practices for creating effective instructions

Examples of good and bad instructions

Best practices for customizing a tone of voice

Example of a custom tone of voice

Best practices for creating effective instructions

To get the best results from your instructions, keep the following best practices in mind:

Be clear and direct

Use capitalization for emphasis

Create one instruction per directive

Avoid conflicting instructions

Use existing features appropriately

Always test your instructions

Be clear and direct

When crafting instructions, clarity is key. Use straightforward language and direct commands.

For example, instead of saying:

"I want the AI to always use our brand name."

Say this instead:

"ALWAYS use 'Acme Labs™' instead of 'Acme.'"

A direct approach helps the agent AI understand and implement your instructions more effectively.

That said, expect your instructions and tone of voice settings to be interpreted as strong guidance rather than rigid commands. Due to the way generative AI works, your AI agents might not execute every instruction perfectly every time, so it’s important to maintain realistic expectations about their performance.

Use capitalization for emphasis

When you want to stress certain behaviors in your instructions, using capitalization can be effective.

For example, instructing the AI agent to "ALWAYS include a link" will highlight the importance of that directive.

Create one instruction per directive

Instead of including multiple directives in a single instruction, break them down into separate instructions. Ensure that each instruction contains no more than a single directive. This approach:

Enhances the likelihood that the AI agent will respect your instructions.

Makes it easier for you to edit and manage instructions over time.

Avoid conflicting instructions

Ensure that your instructions don’t contradict each other. For example, don’t write an instruction that says to end all messages with a smiley face if you have another instruction that says not to use emojis.

Also, make sure your instructions don’t conflict with your chosen tone of voice. For example, if you configured the AI agent’s tone of voice to be friendly and casual, avoid instructions that suggest overly formal or abrupt responses. Consistency in messaging is crucial for a seamless customer experience.

Use existing features appropriately

Remember that instructions are not a substitute for other features. For specific tasks like configuring the welcome message, persona, tone of voice, pronoun formality, or escalation flows, use the designated features instead of relying on instructions.

In particular, take full advantage of the available persona and tone of voice settings. These features help define how your AI agent interacts with customers, enhancing the overall user experience.

Always test your instructions

Before making any instruction active, test the individual instruction and test all your instructions together to see how the AI agent responds. Testing helps you identify any issues with wording or clarity. If an instruction doesn’t yield the expected outcome, try rephrasing it. The wording of an instruction plays a significant role in determining how an AI agent responds.

After deploying your AI agent, continue to monitor its interactions with end users. If certain instructions aren’t performing as expected, revisit and tweak them. The AI agent’s effectiveness can improve over time with careful adjustments based on real-world usage.

Examples of good and bad instructions

Below are examples of instructions, some good and some bad. Each example also includes an analysis of how following or ignoring the best practices above impact the instruction’s effectiveness.

Good instructions

Example: If the user asks any questions about how we are regulated, then send the following response verbatim: “Thank you for reaching out to us. Please see our regulatory information at https://help-centre-link.com/regulation.”

Why it’s good: Clear and direct.

Example: ALWAYS say “Enjoy your flight!” at the end of your message

Why it’s good: Uses capitalization for emphasis.

Example: When your answer is a list of step-by-step instructions, always list them as 1, 2, 3 regardless of the formatting of the source.

Why it’s good: Clear and direct.

Example: At FinanceCo, we cannot offer any financial advice ever. Make sure you NEVER give the user financial advice of any kind. If you think an answer could be construed as financial advice, make sure to add a disclaimer at the beginning that says “Please note, we cannot provide financial advice.” followed by a new paragraph.

Why it’s good: Uses capitalization for emphasis. Though note that, as mentioned above, instructions cannot be 100% foolproof, so expect some potential instances of the AI agent not including the disclaimer when you might want it to.

Bad instructions

Example: You can use emojis, but only if they are more likely to be appropriate than not. Decide yourself.

Why it’s bad: The language is too vague and leaves too much up to interpretation.

Example: Always welcome the user.

Why it’s bad: This conflicts with the welcome message feature.

Example: Always escalate to an agent if the user mentions being hacked.

Why it’s bad: Instructions cannot trigger escalations. This should be handled via a use case instead.

Best practices for customizing a tone of voice

You can also consider a custom tone of voice to be a kind of instruction, just directed at one specific aspect of your AI agent. You'll see best results if your custom tone of voice is as descriptive as possible, potentially with suggestions of the types of phrases or emojis that the AI agent should use.

As with instructions, be direct about what the AI agent should do. Consider a wide range of scenarios and whether the tone of voice will suit them all. For example, an AI agent that has been instructed to always be cheery and lighthearted might not provide the best answer to a user who is complaining they've been doxxed.

Example of a custom tone of voice

Below is an example of a custom tone of voice that is descriptive and contains examples of specific phrases and emojis.

Example: Respond to the user like Cher from the movie Clueless. Be super bubbly, confident, and a total valley girl. Use phrases like “As if!”, “Whatever!”, and “Totally!” Give responses in a fun, sassy, and fashionable way, with lots of enthusiasm and charm! Use one or two emojis per message.