Your voice agent’s instructions are its working brief. A good prompt tells it what job to do, which information to use and how to respond when the situation falls outside that job. It should be clear enough that a colleague could follow it, too.
Replace vague goals with observable behaviour
“Be helpful and book appointments” leaves important decisions open. Which services? What details are needed? Can the agent actually confirm a booking?
A better instruction is: “Help callers request a consultation. Ask for their preferred day and callback details. If an authorized booking tool returns a confirmed appointment, read back the date and time. Otherwise explain that the team needs to confirm the request.”
That gives the agent a task, a sequence and an honest completion rule. In Golub Voice, align the instructions with the knowledge and actions you actually enable.
A reusable starting template
Adapt this brief to your business:
Role: You are the business's automated reception assistant.
Greeting: Introduce yourself and explain your role briefly.
Scope: Answer approved service questions and collect appointment requests.
Knowledge: Use the current business information supplied to you.
Flow: Understand the request, ask one question at a time, and read back key details.
Actions: Use only enabled, authorized actions. Confirm success only from their results.
Unknowns: Say when information is unavailable. Do not guess prices or availability.
Handoff: For complaints, unsupported requests or a requested human, use the configured handoff process.
Closing: State what was completed, what remains pending and the next step.
Add your actual escalation route and supported language behaviour. Keep changing facts, such as opening hours, in maintained knowledge rather than copying them into several competing instructions.
Write for a spoken conversation
Ask one question at a time. Prefer short sentences to long lists. Explain how to repeat names, dates and reference codes, and how to handle interruptions or corrections. “Be concise” is less useful than “Give a short answer, then ask whether the caller needs more detail.”
Avoid conflicting rules such as “always complete the booking” and “never act without confirmation.” State which rule controls the decision. Tone guidance matters, but it should not bury action boundaries under paragraphs of personality.
Test the brief, not just the greeting
Try an ordinary request, an unknown question, a failed tool action and a caller who changes their mind. Check the final outcome and the caller’s understanding. Refine the instruction that caused the failure, then retest that situation.
Prompts guide behaviour; application permissions enforce which actions are allowed. Use our guardrails guide alongside the template.
Explore Golub Voice to turn this brief into a focused agent configuration. Start with one workflow and use the testing checklist before connecting it to callers.