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Your agent’s instructions decide everything it says on a call. You can rewrite them at any time in the Prompt tab, and changes apply to the next call rather than the one happening now. This is the highest value edit you will make: five minutes here beats an hour of anything else.

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Before you start

  • An agent, even an unfinished one. See Create your first agent.
  • Ten minutes and knowledge of how you want awkward calls handled.
  • Facts like prices and opening hours belong in knowledge instead, where you can change them without rewriting. See What your agent can learn.
  • You will be working in your agent’s Prompt tab.

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Steps

1

Open the Prompt tab

Open your agent and go to Prompt. If Brilo built the agent for you, there is already a full set of instructions here. Read it before you change anything.
2

Fix the greeting first

The first line callers hear matters more than the rest of the page. Say who is answering and invite the caller to speak, for example “Thanks for calling Marston Dental, how can I help?” You can also set a fixed greeting in the Configure tab.
3

Say what the agent is there to do

List the jobs in order of how often they come up: taking bookings, answering questions about services, taking a message. An agent told what matters most handles the common call better.
4

Say what to do when it cannot help

This is the part most people skip and the part that decides whether callers are satisfied. Write down what happens when your agent does not know: take a message, offer a callback, or pass the call to a person. See Pass the call to a person.
5

Write the things it must never do

Be explicit. Never quote a price for custom work, never promise a same day appointment, never give clinical advice. Your agent follows a clear prohibition well and guesses when you leave a gap.
6

Save and test the change

Save, then call your agent and try the exact situation you just wrote instructions for. Reading the words back is not testing them. See Test your agent yourself.

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You will know it worked when

  • Your agent uses your greeting word for word on a test call.
  • It behaves the way you described in the awkward situation you wrote for.
  • It declines the thing you told it never to do, even when you push it.

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What to include, in order

Instructions work best in this order, because your agent reads the whole thing every time.

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What else you can do here

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If it did not work

Your agent ignores part of your instructions. Usually the instructions are long and contradictory. Cut anything that repeats, and put facts into knowledge instead. Long instructions compete with themselves. Your agent says something you never wrote. It is filling a gap you left. Find the situation it mishandled and write the rule explicitly. See Why it answered wrong. Your changes did not take effect. Check the change saved, and remember a call already in progress finishes on the previous instructions. Anything else: My agent sounds wrong.

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FAQ

Edit the greeting in your agent’s Prompt tab, or set a fixed custom greeting in the Configure tab. The next caller hears the new wording, and a call already in progress finishes on the old one.
No. A call in progress finishes on the instructions it started with, and the next call uses your new ones. That means you can safely edit during the working day without interrupting anybody.
Long enough to cover the greeting, the common jobs, the awkward moments, and the prohibitions. Beyond that, extra length works against you: your agent reads all of it every turn and contradictory instructions are the main reason an agent seems to ignore you. Put facts in knowledge, not here.
Knowledge. Anything that changes independently of behaviour, including hours, prices, and policies, belongs there so you can update it without rewriting your agent. Instructions are for how it behaves. See What your agent can learn.
You control what it says about itself, and most callers work it out anyway. The agents that go down best do not pretend otherwise when asked directly. Some places also require disclosure, so check what applies to you before instructing it to deny it.
Almost always because two parts of the instructions conflict, or because the page is long enough that the important rule is buried. Cut repetition, put facts in knowledge, and state the rule that is being ignored once, plainly, near the top.
Tell it plainly to keep answers to one or two sentences unless asked for detail, and set the tone to a concise option in the Configure tab. Then call it and check, because chattiness is the thing customers notice fastest.
You can require exact wording for specific moments, like the greeting or a closing line, and that works well. A full word for word script for the whole call does not, because callers do not follow the script and your agent needs room to answer what was actually asked.