Procedures: Give Your AI Agent Step-by-Step Instructions for Specific Scenarios
Overview
Procedures let you tell your AI agent exactly what to do when a customer asks about something specific. Each procedure is a short, named set of steps that the agent follows only when a question matches it, so you get consistent, predictable answers for the requests that matter most.
Procedures are set up per channel in Agent Setup.
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What you can do with procedures
1. Follow set steps in specific scenarios
When a customer asks about something specific, the agent does exactly what you've written, in the order you wrote it, instead of improvising.
- Phone support: when someone asks to speak to a person, share your support number and hours.
- Account help: when someone can't log in, run your existing Reset password action.
- Collecting details: ask for name, email and order number one at a time, then confirm before answering.
2. Prioritise the right content
Tell the agent which sources to lead with for certain customers or under certain conditions.
- Pricing questions: answer from your current pricing page, not older announcements.
- Getting set up: lead with the latest setup guide and include your video walkthrough link.
- Product versions: for questions about the new product, use only the current docs.
3. Skip straight to the right outcome
Some conversations shouldn't go through the usual search-and-answer loop. A procedure can tell the agent to stop and escalate the moment a topic comes up.
- Legal or security issues: don't attempt an answer; hand off to a person straight away.
- Cancellations: skip troubleshooting and connect the customer to your retention team.
- Complaints and billing disputes: acknowledge the issue and escalate, with no back-and-forth.
How procedures work
Every procedure has three parts:
| Part | What it's for |
|---|---|
| Name | A short label so you can find it later (for example, "Phone support"). |
| Description | When the procedure should apply (for example, "The customer asks to speak to someone by phone"). The agent uses this to decide whether the procedure is relevant. |
| Steps | What the agent should do, written in plain language. |
- Used only when relevant. The agent checks which procedure fits the question and loads just that one, so you can add many without cluttering every answer.
- Procedures come first. When a procedure applies, the agent follows it over its general instructions.
- Works with your existing actions. A procedure can trigger an action you've already set up on the channel, such as Reset password or a handoff to your support team.
- Switch on and off instantly. Changes apply to the next conversation, with no publishing step needed.
Why use procedures
One block of custom instructions has to cover every situation, and it grows harder to manage as you add rules. Procedures break that into focused steps and triggers you can write, test and switch off one at a time. The result is an agent that handles your most important requests the same way every time.
Procedures and custom instructions
Custom instructions aren't going away, but anything shaped like "when X happens, do Y" works better as a procedure, because it loads only when it matches and is followed more precisely.
Your existing custom instructions are kept. If you disable every procedure on the channel, the agent goes back to using your custom instructions on the next conversation.
Getting started
- Open Agent Setup for a channel and go to the Procedures tab.
- Create a procedure. Write a clear description of when it applies (for example, "The customer asks to speak to someone by phone").
- Write the steps in plain language, the way you would brief a new team member.
- Enable it and try a matching question in the test chat.
- Move any rules from your custom instructions into procedures, then enable them together.
Tips for writing good procedures
- Be specific in the description. Specific descriptions match more reliably than broad ones.
- Keep each procedure to one job. If a procedure covers several scenarios, split it up.
- Name exact sources. When prioritising content, name the exact page or document the agent should use.
- Test before you rely on it. Ask a few differently worded versions of the question in the test chat to check the procedure is picked up.
Current limitations
- Procedures can trigger actions that already exist on your channel, but they can't yet call new tools or integrations on their own.
FAQs
Will adding procedures change how my agent behaves today? No. A channel behaves exactly as it does now until you create and enable a procedure on it.
How do I undo it if something isn't working? Disable the procedure. If it was the last enabled procedure on the channel, your custom instructions are used again from the next conversation.
How many procedures can I add? You can add as many as you need. Because the agent only loads the procedure that matches the question, adding more doesn't make every answer longer or less focused.