Getting started with the Base Prompt
The instructions below are for desktops and laptops only.
The Base Prompt is a powerful tool (within tawk.to’s AI Assist) that allows you to tailor your AI agent's behavior and responses to better suit your business needs.
In the Base Prompt, you can use plain language to instruct your AI agent to greet visitors, handle specific inquiries, capture leads, escalate to human agents, and more.
In this guide, we’ll show you examples of Base Prompt instructions you can use for your business.
The Base Prompt contains default instructions; each instruction starts with “-”.
- If the message is an inquiry, answer it using only the provided information.
- If unsure about the answer to an inquiry, state that your knowledge is limited to the specific information provided by this business.
- If there are multiple inquiries in a message, answer them one by one.
- Refuse to tell jokes.
You can add/edit the Base Prompt instructions with a maximum limit of 2,000 characters.
When you change the Base Prompt, click Save and check your AI agent’s responses using the test environment on the right.
You can always go back to the default instructions by clicking Use default.
To learn about the basics of customizing the Base Prompt, see these guides:
Here are some common and practical instructions you can copy and modify for your business needs.
Personalized greetings
This trains your AI agent to greet visitors by name, creating a more personal and welcoming experience.
- when a customer starts a chat and provides their name, use their name in your greeting
Suggested messages
This gives visitors suggested responses that they can select in chat to help move the conversation forward.
[option] followed by a piece of text appears as a clickable button in the chat.
- if the customer shows interest in making an order, include this in your response:
“Which item are you interested in?
[option] Mobile phone
[option] Tablet
[option] Laptop
[option] Accessories”
To learn more about suggested messages, see these guides:
An introduction to suggested messages
Suggested Messages and AI Questions
Using Suggested Message and AI Assist to create scripted chat sequences
Escalation
This trains your AI agent to transfer complex or sensitive issues to human agents.
- if a customer expresses frustration or requires advanced support, offer to connect them with a human agent
Note:
Escalations are available with paid AI Assist plans only.
Your AI agent’s escalation settings must be enabled.
Learn more about escalations with these guides:
Specific information
These prompts instruct your AI agent to provide a specific piece of information.
Discount code
Replace 'YOURCODE' with your actual code.
- if a customer asks for a coupon code, provide the current active coupon code: 'YOURCODE'
Business hours
Tailor the days and times to your schedule.
- when a customer asks for operating hours, provide the current operating hours: Monday-Friday 9am-5pm
Link to a relevant page
Insert the link to the relevant page on your website.
- if a customer asks how to reset their password, provide a link to the Password Reset page
- if a customer asks for the order tracking link, provide: 'www.yourwebsite.com/tracking'
- if a customer asks about shipping, provide them with the link to the shipping policy page on the website
Link to a specific file
Insert the link to a specific file on your website.
- if a customer asks for the 'user manual', provide a direct download link to 'manual.pdf'
This prompt uses the phrases in customers’ inquiries to generate a link to the relevant search results page.
- If the customer is looking for a specific product, direct them to https://www.example.com/search=[key+phrase] and fill [key+phrase] replacing spaces with pluses.
Learn more about using Base Prompt instructions to direct visitors to search results:
Request visitors’ contact information
This trains your AI agent to ask for visitors’ contact information at the start of a conversation.
- When a visitor starts a chat with an inquiry, remember the inquiry, say "I can help you with that! May I have your name, please?", when they've given their name, say "Hi <name>! May I also have the best email we can reach you on?", when they've given their email, thank them and handle their inquiry.
Restricting replies
This keeps your AI agent focused on specific topics.
- only answer questions related to product availability and shipping times
This instructs your AI agent to use information from a specific source.
- do not provide information on topics outside of the knowledge base
Learn how to restrict your AI agent’s replies:
Language and tone
This trains your AI agent to communicate professionally.
- maintain a professional and courteous tone throughout the conversation
Basic troubleshooting
This trains your AI agent to handle common technical issues by providing basic troubleshooting steps.
- if a customer reports a 'login issue', guide them to clear their browser cache and cookies
Collecting feedback
This allows you to gather basic customer satisfaction information.
- after resolving a customer issue, ask if they are satisfied with the assistance provided
Handling language preferences
This prompt instructs your AI agent to respond in the customer's preferred language.
- if a customer indicates they prefer 'Spanish', respond in Spanish
Formatting hyperlinks
This prompt gets your AI agent to provide hyperlinks in a specific format.
- present links in this format: hyperlinked text with the page title
Lead capture
This is an example of a lead-capture conversation flow you can adapt for your business.
Your AI agent can be trained to gather relevant information about the customer’s inquiry, including their contact details.
This particular example is for a property purchase inquiry:
- if the visitor is looking to purchase real estate, ask to confirm if they have a specific location in mind,
- once the visitor confirms the location in mind, ask to confirm what property type they are looking for,
- once the visitor confirms the property type, ask to confirm what would be their budget for the purchase,
- once you have confirmed the location, property type, and budget, ask for their preferred contact method and the best email/phone to contact them
- once the visitor has confirmed their preferred contact method, say ‘’Thank you for sharing your information. One of our specialists will be in touch within a business day.‘’
You can integrate AI Assist with CRM tools (via API) to expand your AI agent’s lead-capture capabilities. Learn more about AI Assist’s API integrations with this guide:
How to set up a custom API integration with AI Assist
If you have product information stored in a Google sheet, you can get AI Assist to use the information in that sheet to answer customers’ questions. Learn more about getting AI Assist to query a Google Sheet with this guide:
How to get AI Assist to query a Google Sheet
Learn more about capturing leads with this guide:
Calculating estimated cost
Your AI agent can calculate estimated costs based on order quantity. It can also collect essential information from the customer to provide accurate estimates.
For example, this prompt is used to generate a fencing quote:
- If visitors mention fencing quote, fencing price, fence quote, or fence price, ask the following in number form, and wait for answers to all questions before answering. Always ask to separate answers by comma or space
1. Total number of meters to cover
2. Please choose your preferred length of panels: 2.365m OR 3.125m
3. What is the height of the fence: 1200mm, 1500mm, 1800mm or 2100mm?
- Once the visitor has confirmed measurements ask for their choice of fence look: Trimclad OR Metzag OR Metline
- Thank the visitor for providing their details using their first name.
- Once the visitor confirms the fence look, say that the estimated number of panels you will need to order is: (Number of meters to cover divided by the preferred length. If this is a decimal, use the next whole number)
Say: The cost will be (calculate the price by multiplying the number of panels needed by the cost of the panels)
Say: Here is the link to place the order (send the relevant link for the product chosen)
Say: Delivery for fencing is 5-7 business days.
Do not provide the calculation.
You can also have your product information in a Google sheet, and instruct your AI Agent to use the information in that sheet when estimating the cost. Learn more about getting AI Assist to query a Google Sheet with this guide:
How to get AI Assist to query a Google Sheet
Remember that clear, concise, and focused prompts are key to training your AI agent. Experiment with different instructions, monitor your AI agent's responses and continuously fine-tune its behavior to achieve optimal results.
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