Overview

Improving your Voice Agent is an ongoing process of reviewing conversations, identifying friction, and refining prompts, workflows, and transfer logic.

The goal is to improve both booking rates and the customer experience.

Before making changes, first identify where the issue exists:

• What the agent asks
• How the agent behaves
• What information the agent knows
• What the overall goal of the call should be

Understanding the Three Components

Every Voice Agent relies on three core components:

Component	Purpose
Playbook	What the agent asks
Agent Guidelines	How the agent behaves
Knowledge Base	Information the agent can reference

Think of the Playbook as the script. It defines the specific questions and the order they are asked.

Think of the Agent Guidelines as the coaching. They define how the agent should behave, what it should prioritize, and how it should handle situations that do not fit neatly into the script.

The Knowledge Base provides the background information the agent can reference throughout the conversation.

Making changes in the wrong place often leads to poor results.

For example:

• Trimming the Playbook will not fix a handling issue.
• Updating the Knowledge Base will not fix a poor question flow.
• Adding behavioral instructions to the Playbook can create conflicting prompts.

Best Practice: Ensure the Playbook, Agent Guidelines, and Knowledge Base work together and do not compete with one another.

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Playbook FAQs

When should the Playbook be updated?

Update the Playbook when the issue involves what the Voice Agent is asking or how the conversation is structured.

Common examples include:

• Questions causing caller drop-off
• Asking unnecessary questions
• Poor question order
• Missing intake questions
• Asking for too much information too early
• The flow not matching how callers are actually calling in

For example, if a question is irrelevant for a certain call type, the order of questions causes confusion, or too many questions are being asked upfront, that is a Playbook issue.

What makes a Playbook effective?

Strong Playbooks:

• Identify caller intent early
• Capture critical information first
• Use simple, conversational language
• Ask questions one at a time
• Avoid repetitive or unnecessary questions
• Adjust based on information already provided

A well-structured Playbook might start by identifying caller intent, such as:

"Are you calling about a new move or an existing one?"

From there, the Playbook can branch based on the caller’s answer.

Best Practice: Collect the caller's Name, Phone Number, and Move Date as early as possible in case the call ends unexpectedly.

A strong Playbook may also include a fallback near the end to recover contact information if the call gets cut short.

Why does question order matter?

Front-loading important questions helps protect against caller drop-off.

If a caller hangs up early, critical lead information has already been collected. Asking critical questions too late in the flow increases the risk of losing the lead entirely if the call ends prematurely.

How do I know if the Playbook is too long?

Low completion rates may indicate the Voice Agent is collecting more information than callers are willing to provide in a single interaction.

Overly long Playbooks can lead to:

• Caller fatigue
• Increased representative transfer requests
• Lower completion rates
• Reduced conversions

Focus on collecting only the information needed during the initial interaction. Optional information can be moved to a conditional or follow-up step.

How can I identify where calls are breaking down?

Review call transcripts and look for patterns in where calls end before completion.

Look for signs such as:

• Frequent hang-ups
• Repeated confusion
• Off-topic conversations
• Requests for representatives
• Callers stopping responses at specific questions or stages

If multiple calls stop at the same question or stage, that is a signal to investigate.

Ask:

• Are callers hanging up here?
• Are they asking for a representative?
• Are they going off-script?
• Is the question too complex, irrelevant, or positioned too late in the flow?

Once patterns are identified, determine whether the issue belongs in the Playbook, Agent Guidelines, or Knowledge Base.

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Agent Guidelines FAQs

When should Agent Guidelines be updated instead of the Playbook?

Update Agent Guidelines when the issue involves how the Voice Agent handles a situation, not what it is asking.

Examples include:

• Sounding robotic
• Repeating itself
• Poor interruption handling
• Struggling with edge cases
• Mishandling transfer requests
• Difficulty redirecting off-topic callers
• Not recovering gracefully when callers do something unexpected

What situations should be covered in Agent Guidelines?

Agent Guidelines should define how the Voice Agent handles:

• Representative requests
• Wrong-number calls
• Existing customer calls
• Confused callers
• Off-topic conversations
• Incomplete calls
• Call interruptions
• Callers refusing to answer questions
• Callers reaching the wrong Voice Agent

For each situation, define how the Voice Agent should respond and what it should try to capture before exiting.

What should be defined in Agent Guidelines from the start?

Agent Guidelines should define the Voice Agent’s overall role, behavioral expectations, and priorities.

This may include:

• Being concise and conversational
• Capturing required information before ending the call
• Knowing when to follow the Playbook closely
• Knowing when to adapt to the caller’s situation
• Knowing when to transfer, escalate, or exit gracefully

What should a successful call look like?

A successful call is one where the caller’s intent has been identified, contact information has been captured, and enough context exists for meaningful follow-up.

This definition should be reflected in the Voice Agent’s Objective so the agent’s behavior stays focused on the desired outcome.

How should the Voice Agent handle representative requests?

Best practice is to:

1. Acknowledge the request.
2. Capture useful contact information when possible.
3. Transfer or exit gracefully.

The Voice Agent should not end the call abruptly without collecting useful information.

If the Voice Agent should transfer the caller, create a call transfer to send the caller to the right person or department.

Important: Do not transfer callers to phone numbers that route back into the same Voice Agent workflow.

How should off-topic conversations be handled?

Use redirect language that naturally guides the conversation back on track.

Example:

"I want to make sure I get you to the right place. Can I grab a few quick details first?"

This is an Agent Guidelines-level fix, not a Playbook fix.

What if the caller reached the wrong Voice Agent?

This should be handled in the Agent Guidelines.

For example, an existing customer may accidentally reach a new-lead Voice Agent.

The Voice Agent should:

• Acknowledge the issue
• Collect basic contact information
• Attempt to capture the job number, if applicable
• Route or escalate appropriately

The caller should not be forced through the wrong Playbook.

What if the caller's intent is unclear?

When possible, default to new move intake so the call still captures useful lead information instead of ending without direction.

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Knowledge Base FAQs

What is the Knowledge Base used for?

The Knowledge Base stores shared company information that the Voice Agent can reference during conversations.

Examples include:

• Business hours
• Office locations
• Service areas
• Services offered
• Pricing FAQs
• Company information

Which Voice Agents use the Knowledge Base?

All Voice Agents share the same Knowledge Base.

Because of this, the Knowledge Base should contain company-wide information rather than Voice Agent-specific instructions.

What belongs in the Knowledge Base instead of the Playbook or Agent Guidelines?

If the Voice Agent needs to know information but does not necessarily need to ask for it, it belongs in the Knowledge Base.

Examples include:

• Business hours
• Service areas
• FAQ responses
• Pricing information
• Office details
• Services offered
• Company background

The Playbook is for what the agent asks.

The Agent Guidelines are for how the agent behaves.

The Knowledge Base is the background context that supports both.

Can the Knowledge Base be used for FAQs?

Yes.

The Knowledge Base is ideal for answering common informational questions such as:

• "Do you service my area?"
• "Are you open on weekends?"
• "Do you offer packing?"
• "What's included in a move?"
• "How should I prepare?"

This allows the Voice Agent to answer naturally without interrupting the intake flow.

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Measuring Voice Agent Performance

Different Voice Agents may require different configurations depending on their use case.

Examples include:

• New move inquiries
• Existing customer support
• FAQ and information lines
• After-hours routing

Each workflow may require different:

• Playbooks
• Objectives
• Agent Guidelines
• Post-call actions

What metrics should be monitored during iteration?

Track metrics that measure both call quality and business impact, including:

• Total calls handled
• Successful call completions
• Lead conversion rates
• Missed-call recovery rates
• Average move revenue
• Call completion rates
• Representative transfer rates

Best Practice: Establish baseline metrics before launching your Voice Agent so improvements can be measured over time.