Writing the agent brief: a weak version and a better one
The same store, briefed twice
Northline Goods is a store we invented for this post. It sells cast-iron pans, and every policy, code and weight below is made up too.
| Part | Weak | Better |
|---|---|---|
| Campaign brief | You are a friendly sales agent for Northline Goods. Get shoppers to finish their order. Offer a discount if needed and reassure them that shipping is fast. | You are contacting {{ first_name }}, who started a checkout at {{ brand_name }} and did not finish it. Find out what stopped them, answer questions about the pans from the facts below, and send the checkout link if they still want the order. |
| Guardrails | Be honest and don’t overpromise. | Never give a delivery date. Say orders ship within two business days and the tracking email shows the date. Never say a pan is dishwasher safe. Never compare Northline to another brand by name. |
| Discovery questions | Ask why they left. | Was it the price, the shipping cost or the pan size? Do they have a question about seasoning or care? Would a smaller pan suit them better? |
| Offer rules | Give a discount if they seem unsure. | If the shopper says price is the problem, offer PAN10 once. It gives 10% off and ends Sunday. |
| Additional instructions | (left empty) | The 12-inch skillet weighs 7 pounds. Returns are accepted for 30 days if the pan is unused, and the shopper pays return shipping. |
The weak version sets a mood and a goal, then leaves the facts to the agent. “Shipping is fast” is the line we would worry about first: ask that agent whether a pan will arrive by Friday and nothing in its brief gives it a true answer. “If they seem unsure” hands out a code on a guess about how someone feels.
The better version says who is being contacted, why, and what counts as done. Then it supplies what the agent needs when a shopper asks a real question.
What goes where
Most of a good setup lives outside the three-sentence brief.
| Where | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Campaign brief | One to three sentences: who the agent contacts, why, and the outcome to aim for. A campaign cannot publish without it. |
| Guardrails | What the agent must never promise, ask, assume or do. |
| Discovery questions | Questions that help the agent understand what stopped the purchase. |
| Offer and incentives | What the agent may offer, when, and on what terms. The codes themselves are listed under Offer. |
| Additional instructions | Anything else: product facts, shipping, returns, tone. |
| Brand profile | Your description, what the product solves, what sets it apart, who buys, common questions and your support email. Every campaign using that profile shares it, so store-wide facts belong here. |
| Text and email guidelines | Your rules for one channel, such as tone and words to avoid. Up to 2,000 characters each, under Outreach Channels. |
The agent on the phone and the AI that writes texts and emails read the same brief. If your campaign uses all three channels, write it so it holds for all three, which is why the better version above says “contacting” where the template says “calling”. Merge fields such as {{ first_name }} and {{ brand_name }} fill in for each shopper.
What the template ships with
You do not start from a blank page. A new campaign opens with this brief:
Template campaign brief
You are calling {{ first_name }}, who started a checkout at {{ brand_name }} and did not finish it. Find out what stopped them, answer their questions honestly, and help them complete the order if they still want it.
It also comes with six guardrails:
- Never promise delivery dates, free shipping, refunds or anything else the brand has not listed.
- Never ask for card numbers, passwords or one-time codes.
- If the shopper says they are not interested, thank them and end the conversation.
- If the shopper asks not to be contacted again, confirm it and end the conversation; they will not be contacted again.
- If the shopper asks whether you are an AI, say yes.
- Offer a discount only as the offer rules allow, and only the codes listed for this campaign.
Three discovery questions:
- Was anything unclear about the product, price, shipping or returns?
- Did something go wrong on the checkout page?
- Is there anything that would help them decide?
And one offer rule: “If price is what is holding the shopper back, offer the standard code once. Offer the escalation code only if they are still hesitating on price after that.”
Keep the guardrails and add your own below them. Removing the AI line would not change that behavior anyway: asked directly, the agent always says it is an AI, and no setting changes that.
What not to promise
These are the promises we would keep out of any brief, and what to say in their place.
- Delivery dates. Give your shipping time and say where the date will appear. The carrier controls the rest.
- Refunds and exceptions. Let the agent state your policy as written. Returns and refunds is a default hand-off, so anything beyond the policy reaches a person.
- Free shipping and price matches. If they are not listed in your offer rules, the agent should say it cannot offer them.
- Stock. The agent sees the cart, and ACR does not give it your inventory. Tell it not to say whether something is in stock.
- Anything about an existing order. The agent cannot look one up. Leave that hand-off switched on.
- Health, safety or legal claims that go further than your product page. If the claim is not on the page, keep it out of the brief.
Once it is written, run a test and read the transcript with the brief open beside it. A line you cannot trace to the brief or the brand profile tells you which fact to add or which claim to forbid.
More in How ACR works, or back to all posts.
Read next
- How ACR works
What happens after a checkout is abandoned
From the moment a checkout goes quiet to the order that ends the outreach: how ACR decides whether to reach out, when, and on which channel.
November 7, 2026Read the post
- How ACR worksCalls, texts and email
How a campaign picks a call, a text or an email
It follows a schedule your store sets. Here is the recommended sequence with its real delays, and what makes a step skip or wait.
November 7, 2026Read the post