Best practices for asking an employee service AI agent questions (EAP)

After youcreate and deployan employee service (ES) AI agent, users can ask the ESAI agent questions. To get the best results from an ES AI agent, there are some best practices users should keep in mind when asking questions.


What's my plan?







Employee Service Suite

Growth, Professional, Enterprise, or Enterprise Plus







Summary: ◀▼
To get accurate answers from an employee service AI agent, ask clear, specific questions using natural language and relevant keywords. Specify the app to search if possible. Refine questions by adding context or rephrasing to improve responses. Note that the AI agent can't perform data aggregation or handle time-sensitive queries well, so avoid those types of questions for better results.




After you create and deploy an employee service (ES) AI agent,
users can ask the ESAI agent questions. To get the best results from an ES AI agent, there are
some best practices users should keep in mind when asking questions.
This article contains the following topics:

Asking an employee service
AI agent effective questions
Refining questions in employee service AI agent
chats
Understanding the limitations
of an employee service AI agent



Asking an employee service AI agent effective questions

To get the most accurate responses from an ES AI agent, there are a few best practices for
how users should phrase questions. Following these best practices helps optimize the quality
and usefulness of the response returned by the AI agent.


Use natural language: Frame questions as complete sentences rather than using
only keywords, similar to how you would ask a person a question. For example, instead of,
"Acme features," try, "What features does Acme require?"

Be clear and specific: Give as much information as possible to narrow the
parameters of the question. Think of the AI agent as a new employee who doesn't hold the
same level of assumed knowledge as you. For example, instead of, "Link to our calendar,"
provide more details such as, "Give me the link to our 2026 marketing calendar," to ensure
the AI agent understands exactly what you’re asking for, and doesn't return an old
calendar instead.

Include relevant keywords: Include relevant keywords to increase the likelihood
of finding the correct information. The AI agent searches the sources connected to it by
picking out keywords and phrases from your query. For example, if you ask, "What are the
company’s holiday policies," the AI agent will look for terms such as, "holiday policies,"
"vacation policies," or "time-off policies." The example question could be improved
further by adding context, such as a year, a location for multi-locational companies, or
the type of leave: "What are the company's carer leave policies for Japan-based employees
in 2026?"

Specify which app to search: Specify the app or apps the AI agent should search,
if you know where the information you need is stored. This narrows the search scope and
improves accuracy. For example, "In Notion, what is our company travel policy for
business-class flights?" Or, "Using the Google Slides file 'Company travel policy 2026',
can you summarize how I can get refunded for my flight".




Refining questions for the employee service AI agent

You might need to refine your initial question to the ES AI agent to get the response you
need. This is called prompt engineering, and involves examining the initial agent response
to understand what further information and altered phrasing might optimize the response.
For example, consider this interaction:

You ask, "What are the company’s holiday policies?"

The AI agent responds with a link to a global high-level policy.

You refine your question, "What are the company’s holiday policies for
Japan-based employees?"

The AI agent responds with a link to a Japan-specific policy document, but it
is very long and complex.

You further refine your question, "Provide me with a short summary of the
company's leave entitlements in Japan, listed by leave type."


Another example of prompt engineering is where the initial phrasing might have led to an
unsatisfactory answer, and you need to reword the question to further limit or redirect how
it is being interpreted.
For example, consider this question: "Can I roll over my entitlements?"
The agent needs to understand what roll over means to search for it, and match the phrasing
in the connected sources. If none of the connected sources use the term roll over, The AI
agent might struggle to match the correct sources to the question. If a human agent read the
question, they could infer what is being asked. While an AI agent can perform some level of
inference, it isn't failproof.
So, if you don't get the answer you expect, consider how your question is phrased and
whether it is optimized for the response you want. In this example, you might refine the
question to, "If I don't use all my annual leave entitlements, do they carry over to the
following year?" This more contextualized question alters the terms used and adds
specificity to give the agent better parameters in its search.



Understanding the limitations of employee service AI agents

ES AI agents aren't well-suited for certain types of questions, including:

Aggregation or analysis questions. An ES AI agent can't perform on-the-fly
aggregation of content in your knowledge sources, so it isn't suitable for questions
such as:
"How many deals in POC stage are valued at more than $500K?"
"What is our total pipeline $$ for Q2?"
"How many tasks are in the 'To Do' status in my backlog?"



Time-related questions. An ES AI agent may not accurately interpret temporal
references, so it isn't suitable for questions such as:
"What is the last opportunity we closed?"
"What features are included in our latest release notes?"
"Give me the link to our latest sales deck."






{
"@context": "https://schema.org",
"@type": "TechArticle",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10861083933210",
"url": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10861083933210",
"headline": "Best practices for asking an employee service AI agent questions (EAP)",
"description": "You can improve the accuracy of responses from an employee service AI agent by asking clear, specific questions using natural language, relevant keywords, and specifying the app to search, while understanding the agent's limitations and refining questions as needed.",
"articleSection": "Employee service AI agents (EAP)",
"datePublished": "2026-06-03T17:53:30+00:00",
"dateModified": "2026-07-31T22:27:28.838854+00:00",
"inLanguage": "en-US",
"mainEntityOfPage": {
"@type": "WebPage",
"@id": "https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/articles/10861083933210"