How to customize your Customer Agent with Guidance

You will learn

In this article, you will learn how to use Guidance to customize your Klaviyo Customer Agent. Guidance lets you control how the Agent represents your brand, how it sounds in conversation, and when it escalates to a human. By the end of this article, you will be able to configure your brand summary, set your Agent’s tone, create communication style rules, build escalation rules, and validate that your changes work as expected. These customizations improve response relevance, protect your brand voice, and reduce unnecessary escalation to human agents.

Before you begin

• Klaviyo account with Customer Agent enabled. Guidance is available to accounts that have the Customer Agent feature active.
• Account role: You must be an Owner, Admin, or Manager to create and edit Guidance.
• Plan: Guidance is available on all plans that include the Customer Agent.
• Storefront URL: To auto-generate your brand summary, your storefront URL must be connected in your account settings.
• Time to complete: Approximately 10–15 minutes for initial setup.
• Important: Guidance applies across all Customer Agent conversations and skills. Changes take effect immediately when you save them.

Overview

Guidance is a feature that lets you train your Customer Agent using natural language. Unlike content uploaded to the Content page (which provides reference information for the Agent to draw on), Guidance dictates how the Agent behaves and handles situations across every conversation.

Guidance includes four categories:

• Brand summary — A description of your brand that the Agent uses to contextualize responses and enhance AI spam detection.
• Tone — The overall personality and voice of your Agent. Choose a preset or write a custom tone instruction.
• Communication style rules — Specific behavioral rules about how your Agent communicates: forbidden words, required disclaimers, vocabulary preferences, and formatting expectations.
• Escalation rules — Topics or scenarios where the Agent should hand the conversation to a human.

How tone and communication style rules work

When the Agent generates a response, a rewriting step adjusts it to match your brand’s voice and style before it reaches the customer. Your tone instruction and communication style rules control this step.

Your tone and style settings adjust the Agent’s wording, tone, structure, and vocabulary. They do not enable the Agent to look up customer data, check inventory, verify account details, or take actions like processing refunds. This distinction is important when writing effective rules.

Set it up

Configure your brand summary

Your brand summary gives the Agent context about your business. Klaviyo auto-generates this summary by scraping your storefront URL. You can review and edit the summary at any time.

1. From the left navigation, go to Service > Customer Agent > Guidance.
2. Scroll to the Brand summary section.
3. Review the auto-generated summary. If no summary exists, click Generate to create one from your storefront URL.
4. Edit the summary to add or correct details about your brand, products, and values. The brand summary has a 500-character limit.
5. Click Save.

Tip: Keep your brand summary concise and factual. Include your core product categories, brand mission, and target audience. This summary is also used to enhance AI spam detection, so accuracy matters.

Set your tone

Tone controls your Agent’s overall personality across all conversations. You can select a preset or write a custom instruction.

1. From Service > Customer Agent > Guidance, scroll to the Tone section.
2. Choose a preset tone or select Custom to write your own:
   • Neutral — Balanced and clear. No strong personality. Good for brands that want a straightforward, professional baseline.
   • Professional — Polished and formal. Suitable for B2B, finance, legal, or enterprise brands.
   • Friendly — Warm and approachable. Works well for most consumer brands.
   • Playful — Upbeat and casual. Best for brands with a fun, energetic identity.
   • Custom — Write your own tone instruction in natural language. This gives you full control over how the Agent sounds.
3. If you selected Custom, enter your tone instruction in the text field. This should be a single paragraph describing what your brand sounds like in conversation.
4. Click Save.

Tip: The most effective custom tone instructions are 40–80 words, use an analogy (e.g., “like a seasoned tea merchant” or “like a favorite fitness instructor”), and say what your brand is and what it is not.

Examples of effective custom tone instructions

Specialty tea company:
“Warm, gracious, and knowledgeable — like a seasoned tea merchant helping someone find exactly the right tea. Refined and polished, but never stiff, fussy, or intimidating. Use sensory tea language when it helps (floral, brisk, malty, bright, smooth, smoky) and speak confidently about flavor, origin, and brewing. Calm, generous, and expert — not trendy, overly casual, or salesy.”

Men’s hair care brand:
“Talk like one of the guys from our team. Friendly, relaxed, funny, confident, and actually useful. We should feel like the buddy in the long-hair club who knows what works and wants to help, not a stiff beauty brand or some canned support desk. A little personality is great. Just keep it natural.”

Note: If your brand does not have a strong voice preference, start with a preset. You can always switch to Custom later as you refine your approach.

Create communication style rules

Communication style rules are specific, individual instructions about how your Agent should communicate. These cover things like forbidden words, required disclaimers, vocabulary preferences, and formatting expectations. You can create up to 20 communication style rules.

1. From Service > Customer Agent > Guidance, scroll to the Communication style section.
2. Click + Add rule.
3. In the Title field, enter a short label for the rule (up to 100 characters).
4. In the Describe the rule field, describe the behavior using natural language (up to 500 characters).
5. Use the toggle to enable or disable the rule. Enabled rules are active immediately.
6. Click Save.

Note: Communication style rules and tone work together. Your tone sets the overall personality; communication style rules handle specific behavioral requirements. For example, your tone might be “warm and casual,” while a rule specifies “never say ‘unfortunately’ — reframe limitations as what we can do.”

What communication style rules can do

• Replace words with brand-preferred alternatives (e.g., “guest” instead of “customer”)
• Enforce vocabulary preferences (e.g., “delivery” instead of “shipping”)
• Forbid specific words or phrases
• Add required disclaimers when specific topics are discussed
• Forbid specific types of claims (e.g., health claims for supplements)
• Enforce regional language (e.g., British English, Australian English)
• Set formatting and length preferences (e.g., “keep responses short and scannable”)

What communication style rules cannot do

• Look up customer data (order history, names, account details, loyalty tier)
• Check inventory or product catalogs
• Take actions (process refunds, escalate tickets, send emails)
• Access your CRM, Shopify, or any other external system

Warning: Rules that assume the Agent can access customer data may cause the Agent to fabricate information. For example, a rule asking the Agent to “reference the customer’s most recent purchase” could result in invented order numbers and product names. Never write rules that reference order history, customer names, account status, or browsing behavior.

Examples of effective communication style rules

Say guest, never customer
Always refer to the person as a "guest," never "customer" or "user." We treat every interaction like they've walked into our studio.

No fur baby or doggo
Avoid "fur baby," "doggo," "pupper," etc. Talk to customers like adults looking for a durable solution for their dog.

FDA disclaimer on product benefits
Any time the response discusses product benefits or wellness support, add this exactly at the end: "These statements have not been evaluated by the Food and Drug Administration. This product is not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease."

Use British English
Use British English throughout: delivery, returns, postcode, colour. Not shipping, zip code, color. We're a UK retailer.

No negative body language
Never use "problem areas," "hide," "camouflage," "fix," "correct," or "unflattering."

Create escalation rules

Escalation rules tell the Agent when to hand a conversation to a human. You can define rules based on topics, keywords, customer sentiment, or specific scenarios. You can create up to 20 escalation rules.

1. From Service > Customer Agent > Guidance, scroll to the Escalation rules section.
2. Click + Add rule.
3. In the Title field, enter a short label for the scenario (up to 100 characters).
4. In the Describe the rule field, describe the scenario that should trigger escalation using natural language (up to 500 characters).
5. Use the toggle to enable or disable the rule. Enabled rules are active immediately.
6. Click Save.

Note: The Agent evaluates escalation rules before generating a response and before executing skills. This means escalation happens early in the conversation flow — the Agent will not attempt to answer a question if an escalation rule matches.

Test your Guidance

After creating or editing guidance entries, validate them using the built-in preview.

1. From the left navigation under Test, click Agent preview.
2. Start a test conversation that should trigger your new guidance.
3. Review the Agent’s responses to confirm they reflect your tone and communication style changes.
4. For escalation rules, verify that the Agent hands off the conversation when the defined scenario occurs.

Tip: Test with realistic customer language. The way you phrase a rule may not match how customers actually write, so try multiple variations in the preview.

Manage guidance entries

All guidance entries (communication style rules and escalation rules) can be toggled between two states:

• Enabled — Active. The Agent follows this rule in all conversations.
• Disabled — Inactive. The Agent ignores this rule. Useful for temporarily turning off a rule without deleting it.

To change state, open any entry from the list view and use the toggle. Changes require clicking Save to take effect.

Best practices

Writing an effective brand summary

• Include your core product categories, brand mission, and target audience. — Impact: response relevance.
• Keep it factual and concise. The 500-character limit encourages focus. — Impact: AI spam detection accuracy.
• Update your summary when your product line or brand positioning changes. — Impact: response accuracy over time.

Writing an effective custom tone instruction

• Use an analogy. “Like a seasoned tea merchant,” “like the buddy in the long-hair club,” “like a rider helping another rider in the garage.” Analogies give the Agent a concrete character to channel. — Impact: brand voice consistency.
• Say what you are AND what you are not. “Warm but never stiff.” “Friendly but not cheesy.” “Confident but not pushy.” The negative examples are just as useful as the positive ones. — Impact: tone accuracy.
• Name specific vocabulary if your brand has it. If you sell tea, name the tasting notes. If you sell motorcycles, say “talk like a rider.” — Impact: vocabulary consistency.
• Keep it to one paragraph (40–80 words). Long tone instructions are not better. The system benefits from a a clear, focused description. — Impact: reliability.
• Write it in your brand’s voice. If your brand is casual, write the instruction casually. The way you write the instruction demonstrates the tone you want. — Impact: clarity.

Writing effective communication style rules

• Start with 3–5 rules. This is the sweet spot. Fewer than 3 means you may be missing something important. More than 5 increases the chance of conflicts. — Impact: quality, reliability.
• Prioritize forbidden word lists and vocabulary swaps. These are the most reliably followed rule types (e.g., “say ‘guest’ not ‘customer’”). — Impact: brand voice precision.
• Include exact text for required disclaimers. Specify the trigger and the exact wording. — Impact: compliance accuracy.
• Be specific, not vague. A rule like “be professional” is too general for the Agent to apply consistently. “Clear, direct, no slang, lead with the answer” gives it something concrete to work with. — Impact: consistency.
• Never write rules that assume system access. No “check the customer’s order” or “reference their recent purchase.” Tone and style rules only control how the Agent words its responses — they can’t access external data. — Impact: prevents fabrication.
• Check your rules for conflicts. “Keep responses under 3 sentences” combined with “always include a full disclaimer paragraph” is a contradiction. — Impact: avoids unpredictable behavior.
• Create separate rules for each requirement rather than combining multiple triggers into one entry. — Impact: observability, iterative improvement.

Writing effective escalation rules

• Start with high-impact scenarios: damaged items, refund disputes, complaints about safety, and frustrated or angry customers. — Impact: resolution rate, customer satisfaction.
• Be explicit about trigger conditions. Instead of “escalate when the customer is unhappy,” write “Escalate when the customer expresses frustration more than once, mentions filing a dispute, or asks to speak to a manager.” — Impact: escalation precision.
• Avoid over-escalating. If the Agent can resolve a question with existing content or guidance, an escalation rule is unnecessary. — Impact: Agent resolution rate, support team capacity.
• Use the Title field as a short label and put the detailed trigger in Describe the rule. — Impact: readability when managing multiple rules.

General tips

• Start simple. Begin with a preset tone and 2–3 rules, then expand based on conversation review. — Impact: quality, maintainability.
• Test every new entry using the preview panel before enabling it. — Impact: reliability.
• Write in plain, natural language. — Impact: ease of use.

Measure success

After activating guidance, monitor the following metrics to confirm your customizations are working as intended.

Where to view results: Service > Customer Agent for individual conversation logs. Service > Customer Agent > Performance for aggregate metrics.

Key metrics to watch:

• Resolution rate — The percentage of conversations the Agent resolves without human intervention. Guidance should maintain or improve this rate. Note that escalations triggered by your rules count against the resolution rate.
• Response relevance — Review conversation logs for alignment between Agent responses and your brand voice and style expectations.

If results are not meeting expectations:

• If resolution rate drops, review your escalation rules for overly broad triggers. Disable or refine rules that escalate conversations the Agent could handle.
• If responses feel off-brand, revisit your tone instruction and add more specific detail. Check that your communication style rules are specific enough to be actionable.
• If the Agent uses forbidden words or misses disclaimers, verify the relevant communication style rule is enabled and that the wording is specific. Provide exact forbidden terms and exact replacement text.
• If responses sound mechanical or awkward, you may have too many communication style rules creating conflicts. Reduce to 3–5 focused rules and re-test.
• If the Agent ignores guidance, check that the entry is enabled.

Troubleshooting

Symptom: Agent does not follow my guidance.
Likely cause: The guidance entry is disabled.
Fix: Open the entry and toggle it to Enabled, then click Save.

Symptom: Agent escalates too often.
Likely cause: Escalation rules are too broad (e.g., “escalate when the customer is unhappy”).
Fix: Narrow the trigger. Be specific about keywords, repeated expressions of frustration, or explicit requests for a human.

Symptom: Escalation rules never fire.
Likely cause: The rule wording does not match how customers actually phrase things, or the entry is disabled.
Fix: Test in preview with realistic customer language. Rewrite the rule to match common customer phrasing.

Symptom: Brand summary is inaccurate.
Likely cause: The auto-generated summary may not capture all aspects of your brand.
Fix: Edit the brand summary manually and click Save.

Symptom: Cannot create or edit guidance.
Likely cause: Your account role does not have permission.
Fix: Contact an Owner or Admin to update your role to Owner, Admin, or Manager.

Symptom: Agent uses words I told it to avoid.
Likely cause: The communication style rule is too vague, or the forbidden word was not listed explicitly.
Fix: List every specific word or phrase to avoid. Instead of “don’t use casual language,” write “never use ‘doggo,’ ‘fur baby,’ ‘pupper,’ or ‘bestie.’” Provide exact replacements when possible.

Symptom: Agent fabricates order numbers, product names, or customer details.
Likely cause: A communication style rule assumes the Agent can access customer data (e.g., “reference the customer’s recent purchase” or “address the customer by name”).
Fix: Remove any rule that references order history, customer names, account status, or browsing behavior. Tone and style rules only control wording — they cannot look up external data.

Symptom: Responses sound awkward or mechanical.
Likely cause: Too many communication style rules are active, or rules conflict with each other (e.g., “keep responses under 3 sentences” plus “always include a full disclaimer paragraph”).
Fix: Review your enabled rules for conflicts. Reduce to 3–5 focused, non-conflicting rules and re-test.

Symptom: Required disclaimer does not appear.
Likely cause: The trigger condition in the rule is too narrow or does not match the response content.
Fix: Broaden the trigger. For example, instead of “when discussing CBD tinctures,” write “any time the response discusses product benefits, wellness support, or how a product may fit into a routine.”

FAQ

Q: What is the difference between Guidance and Content?
A: Content provides reference information (like help articles or product details) that the Agent can search and cite. Guidance controls how the Agent behaves: its tone, communication style, escalation triggers, and brand context. Think of Content as what the Agent knows, and Guidance as how it acts.

Q: What is the difference between tone and communication style rules?
A: Tone sets the overall personality — the Agent’s general voice and energy across all conversations. Communication style rules are specific, individual instructions about particular behaviors: forbidden words, required disclaimers, vocabulary preferences, and formatting. Use tone for the big picture; use rules for the specifics.

Q: How many communication style rules can I create?
A: You can create up to 20 communication style rules. However, we recommend starting with 3–5 focused rules. More rules increases the chance of conflicts and unpredictable behavior.

Q: How many escalation rules can I create?
A: You can create up to 20 escalation rules. Start with a small number of high-impact entries and expand as you review performance.

Q: Will Guidance affect my Agent’s resolution rate?
A: Well-written guidance should maintain or improve resolution rates by ensuring the Agent handles conversations appropriately. Overly broad escalation rules may decrease resolution rate by routing conversations that the Agent could handle. Escalations triggered by your rules count against the resolution rate. Monitor your metrics and adjust as needed.

Q: Can my communication style rules access customer data?
A: No. Communication style rules and tone only control how the Agent’s response is worded. They cannot look up order history, customer names, account details, or any external system. Rules that assume data access may cause the Agent to fabricate information.

Q: What happens if I write conflicting rules?
A: The Agent processes all enabled rules together. If rules conflict, behavior may be unpredictable. Review your enabled entries periodically and remove or consolidate overlapping instructions.

Q: Can I target guidance to specific customer segments or channels?
A: Not currently. Guidance applies globally across all Customer Agent conversations.

Q: Can I write inverse escalation rules (e.g., “do not escalate when…”)?
A: No. Inverse rules do not work as expected and may produce contradictory behavior. Instead, write rules that describe when to escalate, and keep them specific enough to avoid false triggers.

Compliance & data handling

Your brand summary, tone instruction, communication style rules, and escalation rules are stored within your Klaviyo account and are used exclusively to configure your Customer Agent. Guidance content is not shared across accounts.

This information is not legal advice. Consult your legal counsel for guidance on applicable laws.

Next steps

• Review your Customer Agent conversation logs to identify additional scenarios for communication style rules or escalation rules.
• Explore the Content page to ensure the Agent has accurate, up-to-date reference information alongside your Guidance.
• Use the Agent preview to test how different tone presets and custom instructions change the Agent’s voice before going live.

Additional resources

• Getting started with Klaviyo’s Customer Agent
• How to Optimize Content for your Customer Agent
• How to test and train your Customer Agent
• Understanding the Customer Agent performance dashboard
• Understanding Customer Agent Skills
• How to launch your Customer Agent