The hardest part of a first AI project is often not building it. It is choosing what the Agent should do.
“Handle customer service” sounds ambitious, but it gives the team very little to design or test. “Collect the details for an after-hours quote request and send them to sales” is much more useful. Everyone can see where it begins, what information is needed and what success looks like.
Do not start with everything AI could do. Start with one thing your business already does every day.
A ten-minute exercise to find the right starting point
Ask the people closest to your customers to write down the five requests they repeat most often. Keep the wording specific. “People ask whether we cover their suburb” is more useful than “general enquiries”. “Customers call to move an appointment” is better than “bookings”.
For each request, write the result the customer actually needs. An answer may be enough, but often the real outcome is a captured lead, a changed booking, a sent confirmation or a handoff to the correct person.
What makes a strong first workflow?
- It happens often. The team will notice the time saved and you will have enough conversations to learn from.
- The information is predictable. You can describe what the Agent needs to ask or look up.
- The outcome is clear. You can tell whether the workflow completed its job.
- The boundaries are safe. You know when the Agent should stop or involve a person.
- The first version is testable. The team can try realistic scenarios before customers depend on it.
A filled-in example: an after-hours quote request
Customer goal: Find out whether the business can help and request a quote.
Information needed: Name, contact details, location, service required, preferred timing and a short description.
Business rules: Confirm that the location is within the service area. Mark urgent requests for immediate attention. Do not promise a final price before the team has reviewed the job.
Completed outcome: The customer receives confirmation and the sales team receives a structured lead with the conversation context.
Human boundary: Transfer or escalate if the request is unsafe, outside the defined services or the customer asks for a person.
Build the path in ordinary business language
Write down what the customer may say, what the Agent needs to ask and which answers change the next step. Keep the first path short. Every unnecessary question creates effort for the customer and another point your team must test.
Then choose the building blocks: a message, a question, a decision, approved knowledge, a connected action or a human handoff. The visual Agent Builder is designed so a non-technical team can see and shape that logic.
Test the awkward version, not only the perfect one
Customers will answer indirectly, change their minds, interrupt and ask for something unrelated. Test those moments. Check that the Agent asks for clarification when needed, does not invent an answer and reaches the correct handoff.
You can test inside the builder before connecting a live number or channel. That makes the free plan useful for shaping the workflow, while the paid plans add the channel access needed to publish it for customers.
Use a simple scorecard when several ideas compete
Score each idea from one to five for frequency, predictability, clarity of outcome, amount of follow-up work, safety of the boundaries and ease of testing. The best first workflow is usually not the most impressive idea. It is the one your team can understand, launch and improve quickly.
Once it works, review real conversations and add the next useful capability. The How it works guide shows how knowledge, decisions, actions and channels fit together as the Agent grows.