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A procedure is a script the agent follows when a situation comes up. Your instructions describe the business and how to behave; a procedure says exactly what to do, in order, when a customer wants a refund, cancels, disputes a charge or asks for something only your team can do. Procedures work in website chat, on the phone and by email. They matter most on calls, where an agent that improvises a refund policy is harder to correct than one in a chat window.

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Where it is

Agents → your agent → Instructions › Procedures. The Instructions page has a Procedures card with an Open procedures button, and ⌘K finds it under “procedure”, “workflow”, “SOP” or “script”. The page lists your procedures, each with its switch and its last 30 days, and the templates to start from. Click a procedure’s name to open its editor.

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What a procedure is

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Instructions and branches

An instruction is one thing to do: “Ask for their order number.” A branch picks what to do next. It has an If, as many Otherwise, if conditions as you need, and an optional Otherwise, up to five in total. The agent takes the first condition that is true, does only that, and then carries on with the next step. A branch can’t contain another branch.

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Calling an action with @

Write @ and an action’s name in a step to have the agent call that action at that point, for example Call @take_message with the order number and the reason. The @ button beside each box lists what you can call:
  • @take_message, which every agent has on every channel.
  • @request_human in chat and email, and @transfer_to_human on calls, when A person in chat & email and Transfer calls to a person are switched on under Handoff.
  • Every action you’ve added under Actions, by its name. A booking action is called as @get_booking_slots and @book_meeting.
An email address such as support@acme.com is not read as an action.

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Variables with {{ }}

Write a variable in a step, a condition or When to use, and the agent sees its value for the conversation it’s in. The braces button beside each box inserts one. When a value isn’t known, the agent sees “(not known)”, so write steps that still work without it: Their email may be {{contact.email}}; if it is not known, ask for it.

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Start from a template

The Templates card has five starting points: Use template makes an editable copy, switched off, and opens it. If the agent already has one with that name, the copy is numbered: “Order return 2”.

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Write your own

1

Add a procedure

On the Procedures page, click Add a procedure.
2

Name it and say when to use it

Make When to use distinct from your other procedures. When two could apply, the agent picks one.
3

Add the steps

Use Add a step and Add a branch, and the arrows to reorder them. Blank steps are dropped when you save.
4

Switch it on and save

Turn on On and click Save. You’ll see “Refund request is on.”
You need the Owner or Admin role, as for Actions. An agent can have up to 20 procedures.

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When it won’t switch on

A procedure can’t be switched on while a step names an action the agent doesn’t have, or one that’s switched off under Actions, or uses a variable that isn’t one of the five above. The editor lists what’s wrong under the switch as you type, for example:
  • “@lookup_order isn’t one of this agent’s actions”
  • “@issue_refund is switched off under Actions”
  • {{order.total}} isn't a variable you can use
You can still Save it, switched off, and finish it later. The list shows “Can’t switch on:” with the first problem.

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How procedures run

  • One at a time. In each reply, the agent follows at most one procedure: the one whose When to use best matches what the customer wants now. It can switch to another when the customer clearly moves on.
  • Across the conversation. When a step needs something from the customer, the agent asks, waits for the answer, and carries on from the same step on the next message, in chat and email as well as on a call.
  • Skipped where an action is missing. Before a conversation starts, every action a procedure names is checked against the channel, including actions inside branches that might never run. If one isn’t available there, the procedure is skipped on that channel. The list says so: “Runs in chat, email. Skipped on calls: @request_human isn’t available there.”
  • The customer never hears about it. The agent doesn’t mention procedures, steps or tool names.
  • Preview calls too. A call on the Call tab of Preview follows your procedures as a phone call would, but isn’t counted.
Outside business hours the agent can’t ask for a person, so a procedure that calls @request_human is skipped in chat and email until the team is back, and the agent offers to take a message instead. For a scripted after-hours flow, start from the After-hours message template, which uses @take_message.

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How it has done

Each procedure’s page shows its last 30 days: Runs per day charts the same numbers, with resolved at the bottom of each bar and pending on top. Days are UTC. Removing a procedure removes its counts; the conversations it ran in are kept. Each conversation’s page in Conversations shows the procedures it followed under Procedures it followed: which one, and whether it reached the last step. The name opens the procedure.