In short#
Your instructions are the part of me you write yourself. They say what I handle for your workspace, what I have to ask, and when I hand over to a colleague. I read them as markdown, so headings and lists genuinely help me.
Two habits make the difference. Put the rules that always apply at the top, then one section per situation. And tell me the goal of each situation instead of the sentence you want to hear. I keep the goal when the conversation turns; a frozen sentence breaks.
Where this goes#
There are two places in settings, and they are separate on purpose:
Settings → Telephone → Call instructions, in the Call script field, for what I do on the phone.
Settings → Messaging → Messaging instructions, for what I do in written conversations.
Both accept the same style of writing. If you are not sure which one to open, or you want the steps to save and test, read Where to edit my instructions.
Markdown I can read#
I read your text as markdown. Two things are enough:
##headings to separate topics.-bullets or1.numbers for rules, steps and conditions.
That structure is for the large language model that reads your instructions, so it can keep your topics apart instead of blending them into one wall of text. It is never spoken and never sent: I do not read ## or a bullet out loud on a call, and I do not put them in a message.
The field is a plain text box, so styling like bold does nothing there. Stick to headings, short lists and short paragraphs. If you want the full syntax on one screen, the CommonMark reference covers it in a few minutes.
## General rules
- Answer in the language the person uses.
- Never confirm a price. Say that a colleague confirms it.
## Someone asks for an appointment
Goal: find out what the appointment is about, when they are available,
and how we reach them back.General rules first, then scenarios#
Start with what is true in every conversation, whoever calls or writes. Keep it to a handful of lines. These are the rules I apply everywhere, so each extra line costs attention.
Then give each situation its own ## heading. Name the situation the way it actually arrives, not the way it looks in your process. "Someone reports a problem in their flat" works. "Incident intake procedure" makes it harder for me to recognise.
## General rules
- Only discuss our own properties.
- If the person insists on speaking to someone, take their number
and say that we call back.
- Never promise a deadline.
## A renter reports a problem
Goal: understand what is broken, since when, and whether it is urgent.
Always ask for the address and a phone number.
Water leak, gas smell or no heating in winter counts as urgent:
say that a colleague calls back the same day.
## Someone asks about a property they saw
Goal: know which property it is and what they want next, a visit or details.
Do not compare it with another property.Tell me the goal, not the exact sentence#
Written dialogue works right up to the moment the person answers something you did not expect. Then I am stuck between your sentence and what is actually happening.
Instead of writing that I must say "Good morning, could you give me your file number?", write that the goal is to get the file number, and to ask for it before anything else. I then phrase it in the person's language, at the right point in the conversation, and I can ask again in a different way if the first attempt does not land.
Keep exact wording for the few things that truly must be exact: a legal notice, the full company name, a reference someone has to write down. Mark those as wording I must use as is.
What I already know#
Your instructions do not start from nothing. Before I read them, I already receive:
the description of your workspace and what you do,
my identity, my name and the tone you chose for me,
what changes on the channel I am on, spoken or written,
what we know about this contact and what was said in earlier conversations.
So you do not have to introduce your company, tell me my own name, or explain that a call is spoken. Repeating that makes your instructions longer for no gain, and when the two versions drift apart I get contradictory information.
Keep your instructions for what is specific to your work: your rules, your situations, what I must ask, and when I stop and hand over.
Phone vs writing#
Do not paste the same text in both places. A call is live and spoken. The person hears one thing at a time, cannot scroll back, and answers immediately. A written conversation can be longer, can hold a list, and can be reread.
For the phone, prefer short sentences, one question at a time, and nothing that only works on screen, like a list of six options or a long reference. For messaging, you can afford more detail and more structure.
Anything about turn taking on a call, such as telling me to wait quietly while someone looks up a number, belongs in How to write my call instructions.
Good to know#
The Call script field holds up to 8,000 characters, and the place in settings warns you when you get close. Shorter is usually better. I follow twenty tight lines far more reliably than five pages.
Resist the urge to write one long "call flow" section that scripts the conversation from hello to goodbye. Real conversations do not follow that order. General rules plus named situations survive contact with a real caller.
The first thing I say when I answer is set separately, so you do not need to open your script with a greeting.
Rules about which fields to pull out of an incoming email are a different setup, in Settings → Messaging → Email. They do not belong in your messaging instructions.
Change one thing at a time, then test. When you rewrite half the script at once and something gets worse, there is no way to tell which line did it.