How to set guidelines in Echo?

The Guidelines section is where you shape how your agent behaves in every interaction.

Think of guidelines as the agent's communication playbook. They help define how your agent greets users, asks follow-up questions, responds to different situations, and ends conversations. By setting clear guidelines, you ensure every interaction feels natural, consistent, and aligned with your brand.

Under Purpose, define the context for your agent and clearly describe what it is expected to do. Think of this as the agent's primary mission. It should explain who the agent is, what its role is, and the outcome it should achieve.

Be as specific as possible. A well-defined purpose helps the agent stay focused and respond more accurately. Avoid vague descriptions, and instead describe the task in a clear, outcome-oriented way.

For example: You are a conversational agent tasked with collecting diners' feedback after their restaurant visit so the team can understand and improve the guest experience.

After setting the purpose, you can set up guidelines like greetings, clarify how the agent should ask questions, number of follow ups to ask in a conversation and specify how to wrap up interactions to ensure a consistent and helpful user experience.

Voice
Collect feedback through natural phone conversations. Your Echo agent calls customers, asks your configured feedback questions, follows up to understand their responses, and captures insights just like a human conversation.

To do this, select the Voice tab to adjust how your agent communicates verbally. This section allows you to fine-tune aspects like greetings, active listening prompts, and how the agent handles pauses, ensuring natural-sounding conversations.

Guardrails- With this you can establish rules for your agent's behavior. This is where you can prevent the agent from making promises or commitments, ensuring it operates within defined boundaries and avoids potential issues.

Best practices for setting guidelines

When configuring your guidelines, keep these recommendations in mind:

Be as specific as possible when describing how you want the agent to behave.
Write guidelines as clear instructions that tell the agent what to do, rather than providing example conversations.
Define a consistent tone and communication style that matches the experience you want users to have.
Specify how the agent should greet users, ask follow-up questions, handle different scenarios, and conclude conversations.
Clearly outline what the agent should and should not do to ensure it stays within the desired boundaries.
Avoid ambiguous or conflicting instructions, as they can lead to inconsistent responses.
Use the Preview panel to test your changes across Chat, Web, and WhatsApp, and refine the guidelines until you're satisfied with the experience.