Your prices depend on a visit
Write that as an approved fact rather than as a ban. «The price is set after a visit, and the visit is free» is a useful sentence; «do not discuss price» leaves the caller with no answer and loses you the call.
Voice and instructions
Deciding what your receptionist is allowed to state, and how it sounds when she says it.
What you will have at the end
A list of things your receptionist is allowed to state, each with its date, and a list of things she must refuse to say. That double list is what separates a useful answer from an invented one.
You will also have chosen the voice and the register: informal or formal, brisk or measured. On job sites people speak plainly; in a clinic they do not. The section proposes the usual register, and you change it if your clientele differs.
Allow twenty minutes for a first usable version. It grows on its own afterwards: every question the receptionist could not answer comes back to you as an instruction to add.
Before you start
- The three questions your customers ask first, and your real answers
- What you do not do: outside your area, outside your specialty, outside the season
- The sentences you refuse to hear said in your name
- If you post prices: the ones that are fixed, and the ones that depend on a visit
The steps
- Step 1
Write your approved facts
An approved fact is a claim the receptionist may make: a service offered, an opening hour, a service area, a usual lead time. Every fact keeps the date it was approved, so anyone can tell whether it still holds.
- Step 2
Write what she must refuse
Firm prices, arrival times, warranties, professional opinions: say what she should answer instead. A good refusal points back to you and says why, without sounding like a wall.
- Step 3
Choose the voice and the register
Listen to a preview using your own sentences. Check how your business name and your street sound: that is where it trips most often.
- Step 4
Publish
A written instruction changes nothing until it is published. Publishing keeps the version, and every call notes the version that served it — which is what lets you understand a strange answer.
- Step 5
Review the suggestions drawn from real calls
When a question keeps coming back and no instruction answers it, it is offered to you as an addition. Nothing is applied without your agreement: you approve, you edit, or you discard.
What an approved fact is, and what it prevents
An approved fact is a sentence you stand behind: «we cover the north shore up to Saint-Jérôme», «the first appointment runs an hour», «we do not work on flat roofs». Your receptionist builds her answers only from those sentences and from what the caller tells her.
That is what keeps her from filling a gap with a plausible invention. Faced with a question no approved fact covers, she says so, takes the request, and passes it to you. A missing answer is fixed in one line; an invented answer is fixed on the phone, with an angry customer.
Publishing, versioning, and tracing an answer back
Writing is not enough: publishing is what makes an instruction effective. Every publication keeps its version, and every call notes the one that served it. When an answer surprises you, open the call, read the version in force at that minute, and you know whether the instruction or the wording needs work.
Changes apply to conversations that start after publication. A call already under way finishes on the version it started with, which stops a receptionist from contradicting herself mid-sentence.
The edge cases
You work by season
A seasonal fact carries its approval date, and that date is there to remind you to revisit it. Write the period into the sentence itself rather than relying on memory to withdraw it at the right time.
Two people write the instructions
The audit trail shows who published what, and at what time. When two versions follow each other closely, the last one published is the one in force: there is no automatic merge between two competing drafts.
Your business name is mispronounced
Spell the pronunciation out in your instructions, the way you would say it to someone on the phone. The same method settles awkward street names and your team's surnames.
You want a different tone per channel
Approved facts are shared across channels, while register is chosen separately. A clinic can stay formal on the phone and plain in writing without keeping two lists of facts.
If something does not work
She gives out-of-date information
Look at the date on the approved fact in the Knowledge screen. An old fact stays active until someone corrects it: the date is there so you can clear them out.
She refuses a question you want answered
Check whether your list of prohibitions is too broad. «Do not discuss prices» also stops her saying that a service comes at no charge.
The voice mangles your business name
Spell the pronunciation out in your instructions, the way you would explain it to someone on the phone. That works better than changing voices.
The register does not match your clientele
Formal and informal address is set independently of the voice. Change it, listen to the preview again, then publish.
Frequently asked questions
What owners ask about instructions.
How many instructions are needed to start?
Answers to the three questions customers ask first, your service area, your hours, and the list of what you do not do. That is one page, and it is enough for a useful first call.
Can she make an answer up?
She answers from your approved facts and from what the caller says. With no approved fact on the subject, she announces it and takes the request rather than filling the gap.
How do I know whether a fact is still true?
Each fact shows the date it was approved. The Knowledge screen sorts by date, which makes it obvious at a glance what predates your last price or service-area change.
Who decides on the suggested improvements?
You do. An improvement drawn from real calls arrives as a proposal to read: you approve it, edit it, or throw it away. Nothing is applied without that agreement.
That is what separates a suggestion from a silent change to what your business states.
Can I rule out one specific sentence?
Yes. Write what she should say instead: a good refusal points back to you and says why, rather than leaving a silence the caller reads the wrong way.
Does the voice change what she says?
No. The voice decides timbre and pace, the instructions decide content. Switching voice alters neither your approved facts nor your bans.
The other help centre articles
Every task has its own.
After this
What makes instructions genuinely useful.