Best practices: getting the most from your assistant

This is the number one practice, and the most neglected. Open your Conversations, read a few transcripts, and as soon as an answer does not suit you, flag that bubble.

You write the expected answer, Tinos turns it into an instruction applied to the next calls. In ten minutes a week, your assistant gets far better than anything you would achieve by rewriting its instructions blind.

The right rhythm: every day during the first week, then once a week.

Start with the website scan, which builds a first base in a minute. Then add the questions you hear on the phone that are written nowhere: lead times, service area, call-out fees, payment terms.

Write answers as you would say them out loud, one idea per entry. The cap of 40 entries is a help, not a constraint: beyond it, an assistant gets vague.

Do not forget your opening hours, lunch break included. They feed the answers, the flagging of out-of-hours calls and the appointment slots.

The first sentence is written by Tinos: your assistant says its first name and your company name, states that it is an artificial intelligence and that the call is recorded, then invites the caller to speak.

So take care of your company name, in Profile: the name your customers know, not necessarily the legal name. It is the first sign that tells them they have reached the right place, and it also appears in your text messages and on your booking page.

Then test with the test call button: it is free, uses none of your minutes and does not appear in your Conversations. Listen to it out loud, that is the only valid judge.

Every call earns you an e-mail summary, and that is deliberate: a call left without follow-up is a lost customer. The summary reads in seconds: the reason, the contact details and, if there is one, the booked slot.

If you work as a team, add a recipient in the Notifications panel: a partner or a front desk is told at the same time as you.

Keep voice transfer for what truly deserves it. A notification informs you without interrupting you in the middle of a meeting.

It is the most profitable setting in the whole product, and it is a single switch on your assistant’s page, Texts to your clients card.

An SMS goes out before every confirmed appointment, 2, 24 or 48 hours ahead as you choose. Forgotten appointments cost far more than the few messages sent.

In the Advanced tab of your assistant, one setting is underused.

Words to recognize lists the rare words of your trade: product names, street names, people. They directly improve transcription, and therefore the quality of answers.

Noise filtering and fine listening are set by Tinos to the best measured values: there is nothing for you to do.

Look at three things, no more. The ratio between Calls and Requests tells you whether your assistant gets things done. Outside hours calls tell you what you would have lost without it.

The call breakdown tells you where it stalls. Many abandoned calls deserve a read of the matching transcripts. Many calls with no interaction, on the other hand, are usually immediate hang-ups: your Knowledge page will not change that.

Every slice of the donut is clickable and opens the matching conversations. Use that rather than searching by hand.

Three obligations are met by design, with no setting on your side: the artificial intelligence disclosure in the very first sentence, the information about recording and respect for a refusal, and directing life-threatening emergencies to 15 or 112.

Your instructions cannot bypass them, and that is intended: they protect your customers and they protect you too.