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 and when it escalates to a human. By the end of this article, you will be able to configure your brand summary, create 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 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 currently includes two categories:

• Brand summary — A description of your brand that the Agent uses to contextualize responses and enhance AI spam detection.
• Escalation rules — Topics or scenarios where the Agent should hand the conversation to a human.

Coming soon: Custom Tone and Communication styles will give you additional control over the Agent's personality and specific behavioral 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.

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 guidance 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

Escalation rule entries 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 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.
• Create separate rules for each scenario rather than combining multiple triggers into one entry. — Impact: observability, iterative improvement.
• Avoid over-escalating. If the Agent can resolve a question with existing content or guidance, an escalation rule is unnecessary. Reserve escalation for situations that genuinely require human judgment. — 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 2–3 escalation rules and 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 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 brand summary and add more specific detail.
• 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.

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 escalation triggers and brand context. Think of Content as what the Agent knows, and Guidance as how it acts.

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: What happens if I write conflicting escalation 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 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 escalation rules.
• Explore the Content page to ensure the Agent has accurate, up-to-date reference information alongside your Guidance.
• Watch for upcoming Guidance features: Voice & tone and Communication styles for additional control over the Agent's personality and behavior.