Guardrails and call experience

Two sections shape how an expert behaves beyond its persona:

Guardrails, on the Profile tab under the persona: how strictly it stays on topic, the rules it must never break, and the topics it must not discuss.
Call experience, on the Voice tab: turn-taking, silence, how long a call may run, extra phrases that end a call, and background sound.

Both are saved with Save changes, and both work in the Test panel before you save. Only admins can change them; members see them read-only.

Guardrails

Strictness

Strictness	What the expert does
Relaxed	Answers general questions too, and uses common sense around the edges of its knowledge.
Standard (default)	Stays on topic and says so when something is outside what it knows. Right for most experts.
Strict	Only what is in its knowledge and rules. Declines everything else, politely and briefly.

Rules

Rules are instructions the expert follows on every conversation, and they outrank everything else it has been told, persona included. Write one rule per line, the way you’d tell a new colleague:

Never quote a price. Say a teammate will follow up.
Don’t promise a delivery date.
Always confirm the caller’s name before booking.

Up to 20 rules, each up to 200 characters.

Blocked topics

Blocked topics are subjects the expert won’t discuss. When a caller raises one, the expert says it can’t help with that and offers what it can do instead. It doesn’t explain why, and it doesn’t hint at an answer.

Add short phrases, such as Competitor pricing or Medical diagnosis. Up to 20 topics, each up to 60 characters.

With Strict strictness, blocked topics are also checked in every reply. If a sentence of the expert’s reply touches a blocked topic, that sentence is replaced with “Sorry, that’s not something I can help with. What else can I do for you?” and the rest of the reply is dropped. A topic counts as touched when every word of it (ignoring small words like the or about) appears in the sentence, in any order and either singular or plural. This check runs in voice and in text chat.

Write good guardrails

Start with Standard

Most experts need nothing more. Move to Strict only when an off-topic answer would be a real problem, for example a regulated product.

Turn your worst mistakes into rules

Read a few conversations in Conversations. Each answer you’d never want repeated becomes a rule.

Keep blocked topics short and specific

Under Strict, Pricing would block every sentence that mentions pricing, even your own. Competitor pricing only blocks sentences that mention both words.

Test the edges

In the Test panel, ask about each blocked topic and break each rule on purpose. You don’t need to save first.

Call experience

These settings apply to one-on-one calls: in the app, on a share link, on the website widget and on the phone. Each shows Default and its value until you change it; Reset puts it back.

Setting	What it does	Range	Default
Turn-taking	How quickly the expert answers after the caller stops.	Patient, Balanced, Eager	Balanced
Check in after silence	How long the caller can be quiet before the expert asks “Are you still there?“	5–60 s	25 s
Hang up after the check-in	If nobody answers the check-in, the expert says goodbye and ends the call.	5–60 s	15 s
Longest call	The expert wraps up and ends the call at this length.	1–60 min	20 min on the phone, 30 on the web
Extra end-call phrases	Phrases your callers use to say they’re done.	Up to 10, 60 characters each	None
Background sound	A quiet room under the voice.	None, Office, Café, Call center	None
Sound level	How loud the background sound plays.	5–50 %	15 %

Turn-taking

Patient waits a little longer before answering. Best when people think out loud or pause mid-sentence.
Balanced gives natural back-and-forth. The right choice for most experts.
Eager jumps in as soon as the caller stops. Snappy, but it may talk over slow speakers.

Ending calls

The expert already ends a call on “goodbye”, “that’s all, thanks” and the like. Add Extra end-call phrases for the ones your callers use, such as “That’s everything, bye”. A sentence the expert is speaking finishes before a time limit or silence ends the call.

Background sound

Office (quiet keyboards and a distant phone), Café (soft chatter and cups) or Call center (faint voices) make a call sound like a place. The sound plays under the voice, never appears in the transcript, and is heard from your next test call.

Gotchas

Guardrails are instructions, not a filter. Only blocked topics under Strict get the extra check on each reply. Rules depend on the model following them, so test them.
Repeats are kept once. Rules or topics that differ only in case are saved as one.