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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 bubble 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 The instructions under How it talks say something that’s wrong or out of date.
  • The customer needed a person and couldn’t reach one. Handover 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 a knowledge gap, 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 handover

On a new agent, Request a human 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 → Actions.
  2. Turn on Request a human for chat and email. If your team only works certain hours, turn on Only during business hours and set them. Outside those hours the agent offers to take a message instead of promising a person.
  3. For phone calls, set a transfer number under Channels › Phone. Hand calls to you turns on once a number is set.
Every agent can take a message whether handover is on or not. Messages land in your dashboard’s Needs attention card and in the conversation. Handover 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: close the gaps

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 the test chat.

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Keep an eye on

  • Dashboard → Needs attention shows people waiting for a person, requests nobody answered, and messages the agent took. 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.