---
title: Tips for Best Results
description: Practical tips to get accurate answers, a better customer experience, and more value from your agent and your credits.
---

A Chatvox agent is only as good as what it knows and how it's told to behave. These tips help you set it up well from the start and keep improving it over time.

## Give it the right knowledge

- **Start with the pages customers ask about most**: pricing, shipping, returns, setup guides, and your FAQ. Add them as [websites and URLs](/docs/knowledge/websites-and-urls) or a [sitemap](/docs/knowledge/sitemaps).
- **Skip pages with little useful text**, such as login pages, image galleries, or tag archives. They use knowledge storage without improving answers.
- **Use [Q&A](/docs/knowledge/questions-and-answers) for answers that must be exact**, such as opening hours, refund rules, or contact details.
- **Upload what isn't on your website**, such as product manuals or internal policies you're happy to share, as [files](/docs/knowledge/file-uploads) or [text](/docs/knowledge/text).
- **Keep it up to date.** When your content changes, [retrain](/docs/knowledge/retraining) the source, or turn on automatic retraining.

## Write clear instructions

- **Describe your business and your customers** in a sentence or two, and give the agent a name and a role.
- **Say what to do when it doesn't know.** For example: "If you don't know the answer, say so and offer to connect the customer with our team."
- **Set the tone**: friendly or formal, short or detailed, and whether to use the customer's name.
- **Keep facts out of instructions.** Prices and policies belong in knowledge, where they're easier to update.
- **Start from a template** and edit it, rather than writing from scratch. See [Agent Instructions](/docs/agents/instructions).

## Test before you go live

- **Ask real customer questions** in the [Playground](/docs/agents/playground), including ones your knowledge doesn't cover, to see how the agent handles them.
- **Try a tricky or off-topic question** to make sure the agent stays polite and on topic.
- **Change one thing at a time**, such as the model or a rule in the instructions, so you can see what made the difference.

## Choose the right model

- **Start with a fast model.** It handles most support and sales conversations well and uses fewer credits.
- **Move to a more capable model** only if the agent struggles with complex instructions or long questions. Compare both in the Playground first. See [AI Models](/docs/agents/ai-models).

## Make the first message count

- **Write a welcome message** that says what the agent can help with, such as "Hi! Ask me about orders, delivery, or returns."
- **Add [suggested prompts](/docs/deployments/web-widget/behavior#suggested-prompts)** for your most common questions, so visitors can start with one tap.
- **Match your brand** with your colors and launcher image in [Appearance](/docs/deployments/web-widget/appearance), and your avatar in [General settings](/docs/deployments/web-widget/general-settings#widget-avatar).

## Let it do more than answer

- **Capture leads** when visitors show interest, with [Collect Leads](/docs/actions/collect-leads).
- **Hand off to your team** when a customer needs a person, with [Escalate to Human](/docs/actions/escalate-to-human).
- **Get notified** about important conversations in Slack, with [Slack Notifications](/docs/actions/slack-notifications).
- **Recognize signed-in customers** with [User identification](/docs/deployments/web-widget/user-identification), so they don't have to repeat who they are.

## Keep improving

- **Read conversations every week.** Start with replies visitors marked **Not helpful**, then fix the cause: add knowledge, retrain, or adjust the instructions. See [Conversations](/docs/analytics/conversations).
- **Watch for repeated questions.** Turn them into suggested prompts, or make the answer clearer on your website.
- **Check [Agent Analytics](/docs/analytics/agent-analytics)** to see how busy your agent is and how visitors rate its answers.

## Make your credits go further

- **Use a fast model** unless you need a more capable one.
- **Set a [credits limit](/docs/agents/settings#credits-limit)** on busy agents so one agent can't use up your whole team's credits.
- **Check [Usage Analytics](/docs/analytics/usage-analytics)** to see which agents use the most, and [buy a credit pack](/docs/billing/additional-credits) before a busy period.