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For the first week, read every conversation the agent has, not just a sample. The agent’s weak spots usually aren’t in its settings. They’re the questions your website never answers, and you only find those in the transcripts. Most of the fixes you make this week will be knowledge you add, not settings you change.

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Before you start: finish the checklist

Open Agents → your agent. If a setup checklist sits at the top, it lists what’s still missing: the chat widget on your site, knowledge that has finished indexing, and lead capture. Each unfinished line links to the page where you finish it. The agent overview explains how the checklist works.

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Day one: read the transcripts

Open Conversations. It lists every conversation the agent handled on every channel, with full messages. Look for answers that were wrong, vague, or missing. Each one has one of three causes:
  • The agent didn’t have the fact. It isn’t in the agent’s knowledge. Add it.
  • The agent was told something untrue. The instructions under Instructions say something that’s wrong or out of date.
  • The customer needed a person and couldn’t reach one. Handoff isn’t on, or no transfer number is set.
Work out which cause it is before you change anything. Fix a wrong answer walks through the method. For an unanswered question, you can fix it without leaving the transcript. Each conversation page has a Teach card, headed with your agent’s name. Write what the agent should have said and click Add to knowledge. The answer is saved as a note, together with the customer’s question, and the agent uses it from then on.

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Day two: turn on handoff

On a new agent, A person in chat & email is off. This is deliberate. An agent that promises a person when nobody is watching does more harm than one that takes a message. If you have someone to take conversations, turn it on:
  1. Go to Agents → your agent → Handoff.
  2. Under In chat, email and WhatsApp, turn on A person in chat & email. If your team only works certain hours, turn on Only during business hours under Business hours, right below it, and set them. Outside those hours the agent offers to take a message instead of promising a person.
  3. For phone calls, under On a call, enter a number in Transfer calls to a person and save it. The switch beside it comes on when you save a number. Use a mobile or a desk line, not the number customers dial.
Every agent can take a message whether handoff is on or not. Messages land on the Inbox’s Needs you page, in your dashboard’s Needs you card and in the conversation. Handoff explains what happens at each step.

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Day three: set the spend cap you want

Every workspace has a monthly spend cap. It limits what you pay beyond your plan’s included usage, and it starts at $50. That’s a pilot number, not a production one. When usage reaches the cap, conversations pause until you raise it or the month rolls over. A default cap can take your agent offline in your first busy week. You get a notice at 80% of your limit and another when you reach it. On the Free plan with no card on file, the agent stops when the included usage runs out, so add a card before real traffic arrives. Only the workspace owner can change billing. See spend cap.

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Rest of the week: answer the unanswered questions

By now you’ll have a list of questions customers ask that your website doesn’t answer. Put the answers where the agent looks for them:
  • A note under Knowledge is the quickest. Write one short note for each fact, the way you’d say it on the phone: your hours, your returns policy, whether you’re taking new customers. See notes.
  • A file, for a price list or a policy document. See files.
  • A page on your site, which the agent picks up the next time it reads your website. See keep it current.
Don’t put facts in the instructions. The instructions tell the agent how to behave. The knowledge tells it what’s true. If a fact in the knowledge contradicts the instructions, the agent goes with the knowledge. A price typed into the instructions is quoted for as long as nothing contradicts it, even after you’ve changed it everywhere else. After each fix, ask the same question again with Test a question or in Preview.

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Keep an eye on

  • Inbox → Needs you, and the Needs you card on the dashboard, show people waiting for a person in chat, requests nobody answered, and messages the agent took. The number beside Inbox in the sidebar is how many are waiting. See dashboard.
  • Notifications. By default, an email goes to the workspace owner when someone asks for a person, when the agent takes a message, and when it captures a lead. Change this under Settings → Notifications. See notifications.
  • Analytics shows how conversations ended and what people asked about. See analytics.