Rules

Rules are short instructions your receptionist follows on every call: how you like things done, in your own words. Go to Settings, then Personality, and scroll to Rules.

What rules are for

Good rules are about your business and how you work. For example:

• “Never give prices on the phone. The team will quote.”
• “Always ask for the postcode first.”
• “We don’t do commercial work, domestic only.”
• “If someone asks for Dave, take a message and say he’ll call back.”

A rule wins over anything that disagrees with it in your business details or common questions. So if your rule says “never give prices” and a common question mentions one, your receptionist won’t say it.

A rule also wins over what your receptionist usually says when it takes a message. Without one, it usually tells the caller the team will ring them back, within your Call back within setting. A rule such as “Say the team will email them, never that they’ll ring” changes that.

Adding and changing rules

Tap Add a rule and type it. You can have up to 10 rules of up to 300 characters each. Your receptionist reads them in order, so put the most important first; each rule can move up or down. When you’re done, tap Save rules.

Unlike the rest of the page, rules don’t save themselves, because Sayora checks each new or changed rule when you save. It takes a few seconds, and you’ll see one of three things:

• It’s saved. The rule is live from the next call.
• It’s saved, with a suggestion. Sayora explains under the rule how a caller might hear it differently from how you meant it, and suggests other wording. Tap Use this wording to take it and save again, or keep your own.
• It isn’t saved. The reason is shown beside the rule. Change or remove it and save again. Nothing else in the list is saved until then.

If Sayora can’t check your rules right now, nothing is saved and you’ll be asked to try again.

While rules are new, the Sayora team also sees each rule as it’s saved, so we can help if one isn’t working the way you meant.

What rules can’t change

Some things your receptionist does for every caller, whatever a rule says. Your receptionist always:

• tells anyone who’s hurt or in danger to contact the emergency services first
• is honest about being an AI receptionist answering for your business
• treats every caller the same, whoever they are
• takes cancellations, complaints, requests for a refund or for work to be put right, and requests about someone’s own details, and passes them to your team to decide, without turning them down itself
• never asks for card or bank details, passwords or similar, and never shares anything about another customer
• speaks in plain sentences, so a rule asking for lists or formatting won’t change how your receptionist talks

A rule that asks for one of these is refused, or comes back with a suggestion, when you save it. If a rule you’ve saved seems to be ignored on calls, it’s usually one of these: message us and we’ll look.