Chat Question Rules
Question rules decide what happens when visitors ask about particular topics, instead of leaving it to a generated answer. For example, you can send every cancellation request straight to your billing team, reply to refund questions with your exact policy wording, or tell the AI how to answer questions about a sensitive topic.
Go to Inbox, then Messenger settings, then the Rules tab.
Add a rule
- Click Add a rule, or Start from an example to begin with a ready-made cancellation rule.
- Give it a short name, such as Cancellation. Your team sees this name in the inbox.
- Under When a visitor…, describe the kind of question in plain words.
- Under Then, choose what happens, and fill in the fields for that choice.
- Click Save settings.
Each rule has an on/off switch, so you can pause a rule without deleting it. A rule that's missing something it needs is marked Incomplete: not used yet. You can have up to 30 rules.
Describing the question
The AI matches on meaning, not exact words. A rule for "Wants to cancel, close or delete their account" catches "can u close my acct" and "I want to stop paying" too. Describe what the visitor wants, and list the variations you care about:
- "Wants to cancel, close or delete their account, stop their subscription, or downgrade"
- "Asks for a refund or disputes a charge"
- "Reports a security issue or a suspected data breach"
What a rule can do
| Then | What happens | Fields |
|---|---|---|
| Hand off to the team | The conversation goes to your team, as if the visitor had asked for a person. | Team: a team from Notifications, or Decide automatically. Message before the handoff (optional): said to the visitor first. |
| Reply with this exact message | The visitor gets your message exactly as written, with a Talk to a person button, instead of a generated answer. | Message |
| Answer, following this guidance | The AI still answers from your articles, following extra instructions for this topic. | Guidance for answers on this topic |
Teams are set up on the Notifications tab. See Chat Notifications and Teams.
How rules fit with everything else
- A matching rule wins over a normal answer, and over the frustration handoff.
- Your AI agent tab's Guidance still applies to everything the AI writes. A rule's guidance is added on top, for its topic only.
- Rules are applied by the AI agent, so they only work while Let the AI agent answer first is on.
- Your team sees Rule: … with the rule's name on affected messages in the inbox. Visitors never see it.
Example: send cancellations to billing
| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| Name | Cancellation |
| When a visitor… | Wants to cancel, close or delete their account, stop their subscription, or downgrade |
| Then | Hand off to the team |
| Team | Billing |
| Message before the handoff | I'm sorry to hear you're thinking of leaving. I'll bring in someone from our team who can help with your account. |
A visitor who writes "how do I close my account?" gets your message, and the conversation goes to the Billing team's queue and alerts. The AI doesn't try to answer it.
If you'd rather let visitors help themselves, use Answer, following this guidance instead, with guidance such as "Before explaining how to cancel, mention they can pause their account instead, and link to the pause article."
Check your rules
Use the Test tab to confirm a rule catches the questions you expect, and doesn't catch ones it shouldn't. Each result shows the rule matched and the guidance used. Save your settings first, since tests use saved settings. See Testing the Chat AI.
See also Configuring the Chat AI Agent and Taking Over a Chat from the AI.