Do's and Don’ts while creating Prompt for your AIVA Phone Call Agent

AI phone calling is a cutting-edge technology that automates routine calls for data collection, healthcare, reminders, and appointment scheduling. However, when developing a custom AI phone caller, many developers encounter a common challenge: crafting the perfect prompt.

The prompt is crucial as it shapes the AI's entire conversational ability. It's the difference between interacting with a generic language model, which often fails at conversation, and a lifelike call assistant capable of engaging in chit-chat, providing support, and answering questions effectively.

A well-written prompt gives your AI a clear goal and defined routine, comprehensive background information about the task, and example dialogues. We'll explore these three essential elements and provide an example of an excellent prompt that you can customize to suit your needs.

Read to master the art of prompting your AIVA - your very personal call agent!

Establishing Clear Goals and Sequences

The most important element of your prompt is the AI’s goal. This goal can vary from offering excellent customer support to collecting specific data from small businesses or providing a succinct reminder to a telehealth patient. Whatever the goal, make sure to spell it out clearly for your AI.

After establishing a clear high-level goal, break it down into a detailed call flow. Describe the start, middle, and end of the call.

For example: "Call the patient and remind them of their appointment. Ask if the appointment time still works for their schedule. If it doesn’t, offer a list of alternative times for rescheduling."

Although this example includes only three steps, a call flow can be much longer. Regardless of length, it’s essential to map out exactly how you want the AI to conduct the phone call. Without a clear structure, the AI may not produce the desired outcome for tasks requiring specific results.

Information about Task

This is crucial. To make your prompt highly effective, you must provide background information about the task, the AI's role, and the human on the other end of the call, in addition to offering a clear goal and routine.

When the AI has this information, it can leverage the vast text corpus it’s trained on to generate highly effective responses tailored to your specific task.

For example, if you’re creating a customer support AI, provide context about your product and industry. Describe the typical customer profiles, common complaints, and any other relevant details. The more background information you provide, the better the AI's responses will be.

Useful sources of background information include company websites and employee training guides, especially those for phone calls. If you’re automating a previously human-performed phone call, share the human training guide with the AI. Similarly, for any inbound support solution, provide the AI with all relevant website data. This context enables the AI to answer questions accurately and effectively.

Sample Conversations

Again, this is straightforward. Provide your AI with an ideal back-and-forth interaction between itself and a human caller. The dialogue doesn’t need to be long; ten statements are sufficient. Your AI will learn the subtleties of tone and mannerisms you want it to exhibit and will recreate those during its interactions.

Here’s an example:

You: Thank you for calling ABC Company customer service. My name is Alex, how can I assist you today?
Person: Hi Alex, I need some help with an order I recently placed.
You: Sure, I'd be happy to help. Could I get your name and order number to pull up your account?
Person: It's John Smith, order #12345.
You: Thanks for that information. Let me take a quick look... Okay, I see your order here for the deluxe tool kit. What seems to be the issue?
Person: I received the order yesterday, but it looks like I'm missing a few parts from the tool kit.
You: I apologize for the inconvenience. Can you specify which parts are missing so I can submit a replacement order?
Person: Yes, it looks like the Phillips screwdriver and the measuring tape are missing from the kit.
You: Got it. I will process a replacement order for those missing items right away and have it shipped out to you at no additional cost. You should receive a confirmation email shortly.
Person: Thank you, I really appreciate you taking care of this so quickly!
You: You're very welcome! Thank you for being a valued ABC Company customer. Please reach out if you have any other issues with your order. Have a great rest of your day!
Person: You too, bye!

By providing this type of example dialogue, your AI will understand how to interact naturally and effectively with human callers.

Sample Conversations

Here's a prompt that you can test right now.

Note: When you test this prompt, update the request_data parameter in your API call and provide the patient_name and doctor_availability. Otherwise, the AI won't have data to reference when executing the prompt.

Prompt example

Goal: Remind patients of their upcoming doctor's appointments and confirm their attendance or reschedule if needed.

Call Flow: Introduce yourself and state you are calling from Dr. Smith's office. Verify you are speaking with John Doe and confirm his appointment on Tuesday at 10am. Ask if the scheduled time still works for him or if he needs to reschedule. If he needs to reschedule, offer alternative time slots on Wednesday or Friday. Once the new time is confirmed or the original time is reconfirmed, thank him and provide contact information for any further inquiries.

Background: I am an AI assistant created by Healthcare Company to make appointment reminder calls to patients. The patients I call are adults scheduled for check-up appointments with Dr. Smith, a general practitioner. Reminding patients to attend or reschedule appointments is crucial for the clinic's efficiency. Missed appointments cost time and money, so confirming attendance helps improve clinic operations.

Example dialogue:

You: Hello, this is Claire calling from Dr. Smith's office. Am I speaking with John Doe?
Person: Yes, this is John.
You: Great, I'm just calling to remind you that you have an appointment scheduled with Dr. Smith this Tuesday at 10am. Does that time still work for you?
Person: Actually, Tuesday doesn't work anymore. Could we do Wednesday instead?
You: No problem. Dr. Smith has openings on Wednesday at 9am or 3pm. Do either of those times work for you?
Person: 3pm on Wednesday works great, thanks so much for the reminder!
You: You're very welcome! We look forward to seeing you Wednesday at 3pm. Let us know if you need anything else!
Person: Sounds good, bye!
You: Have a great day, goodbye!

Inference

Effective prompting is crucial for the success of your AI phone calls. To craft an excellent prompt, you need to include a clear goal and routine, comprehensive background information, and example dialogues.

Meet us on our community in Discord to see how other clients are making their AI phone calls. Reach out over email (info@speedtech.ai) to share your success.

Thanks for reading - and until next time!