CallRail’s Voice Assist agent is an extension of your business, providing virtual support for incoming calls, taking messages, routing callers, and even scheduling appointments on your behalf. In order to get the most out of Voice Assist, it is important to provide effective prompts for the agent to use. Below are some of CallRail’s tips and guidance on Voice Assist setup and implementation.
Before you begin
In order to use Voice Assist, you must first create your CallRail business profile. This is where the majority of your Voice Assist agents' knowledge comes from. For more information on setting up your profile, please review this help article.
If you have further questions or a more complex use case that requires guidance, please contact our solutions specialists here.
General tips on effective prompts and questions
- Be specific: The more detail you provide, the better.
- Use clear language: Our Voice Assist agents work best when they can use commonly used phrases and instructions. If using industry terms, define the industry term inside of your prompt to help the agent understand.
- Place important information first: Critical details should be at the beginning of your prompt.
- Do not have conflicting information: Check that the details in your business profile, intake questions, and AI voice settings all match; otherwise, the agent will not be able to determine which detail is correct.
- Use headings for organization: When adding custom questions, label them with something specific like "Special Instructions" or “Questions for people buying a home.” It will be easier for your Voice Assist agent to find this information, as opposed to “Question 1” and “Question 2.”
Prompts
Prompts are general knowledge cues that your Voice Assist agent can use to make a persona and respond in a way that matches your business. These, alongside your chosen voice and tone, will work together to create your agent.
Prompts can be placed in Voice Assist > AI voice settings. After selecting a voice and tone, scroll down to the text block for Voice Assist call behavior. In this box, enter your prompts. This text box can contain up to 1,000 words. We recommend typing the prompts in a separate window and pasting them into CallRail. Use dashes (-), line spaces, and headers (##, ALLCAPS, or both) to separate prompts.
Tips for formatting prompts
Prompts should include three things: A context, a role, and an expectation.
- The Context is background information on why a caller might be getting in touch.
- The Role is the type of “person” the Voice Assist agent should be acting as.
- The Expectation is the desired output or instructions the Voice Assist agent should follow.
For example:
##SCREEN REPAIR
-A caller is asking for pricing to repair a window screen. You are a helpful virtual assistant for ScreenMedic. Inform the caller that pricing varies based on the job. Instruct them to email screens@example.com with a picture of the screen that needs repair for a custom quote. Then, ask if they have any other door, window, or porch screens that need to be replaced.
In the prompt above, the first sentence is the Context. The second sentence is the Role. The remainder of the prompt is the Expectation.
You can also refer to other prompts within a prompt. Continuing with the window screen example, you could add a sentence that says, “If the caller wants a quote immediately, use the ##FRUSTRATED CUSTOMER prompt for guidance.”
Questions
Questions are direct responses your Voice Assist agent should give to callers based on their inquiries. These are questions that are specific to your business and needs, and things that would be considered for customer intake or quote generation.
You should treat these as separate from Frequently Asked Questions, which would belong in your business profile. Those are meant to be general knowledge, rather than specific questions to guide the agent’s behavior.
Questions are added in Voice Assist > Caler intake settings. In the Custom Questions section, you will see the + Add a custom question button. Use this button to add questions as needed.
Tips for formatting questions
- Questions can include custom tags using parentheses. If you have different questions depending on caller criteria, you can include tags for the Voice Assist agent to use (or not use.) For example, a realtor might have different questions for a person buying a home versus a person selling a home. You can add a (This is a buyer question) to the buyer questions and (This is a seller question) to the seller questions.
- Custom tags can also work alongside created prompts. For example, the Custom Question below:
- Can have the below prompt added to AI Voice Settings:
- This would tell the agent to only use the tagged questions in further conversation with a caller.
- Custom tags can also work alongside created prompts. For example, the Custom Question below:
- Including if/then statements can change the action taken by the Voice Assist agent.
- Using it after the question can add instructions that will take place based on the caller providing a specific answer. (e.g., “What is your favorite color? IF the caller says that their favorite color is blue, ask them which shade? Then add that to the response, followed by a comma.”)
- Using it before the question can disable or change the question based on something the caller has said earlier in the call. (e.g., “IF they didn't say their favorite color was red earlier, do not ask this question and move forward with the questioning. IF the caller DID state earlier that their favorite color is red, ask them what their favorite shade is.”)