Write the chatbot’s brief
The Brief tab is where you tell the chatbot who it is and exactly how to run a conversation. It is the first tab, and on most chatbots it is the only one you need to fill in.
Set aside about twenty minutes the first time. Write it as if you were briefing a new sales hire on their first morning.
Before you start — open AI Chatbot from the sidebar under Messaging, and check the number chip at the top left is the number you mean to configure. See AI Chatbot for the toolbar.
Read the line at the top first
One line sits above everything else on the tab, and it decides whether editing this page changes anything at all.
Read the bold half of this line before you type a word
| What the line says | What it means |
|---|---|
| Your instructions run this conversation | The Instructions field below is what the chatbot follows, word for word, every turn |
| The playbook runs this conversation | A playbook is in charge. The instructions are kept as the source it was drafted from — editing them changes nothing a customer sees until you re-draft |
There are two more versions of Your instructions run this conversation: one for a chatbot that has a playbook which is switched off, and one for a playbook with no stages in it yet. In both cases the playbook is skipped and your written instructions are what runs. The link at the end of the line — Open the playbook, or Set up a playbook when there is none — takes you to the Playbook tab.
Steps
Name the chatbot and pick its tone
The Identity section holds three fields: Who the agent is, and how it sounds.
| Field | What to put in it |
|---|---|
| Name | What it calls itself, for example Sales assistant |
| Role | One phrase, for example friendly sales rep |
| Tone | Pick from the list below |
| Tone | How it sounds |
|---|---|
| Professional | Business-like and formal. |
| Friendly | Warm and approachable. |
| Casual | Relaxed, conversational. |
| Concise | Brief and to the point. |
If the list also holds a whole sentence rather than one word, someone at Raion wrote that tone for you during setup. It is kept as its own option rather than being overwritten. Leave it as it is unless you mean to change the tone.
If Tone is greyed out and reads Like your team, the learned tone below is in charge. Turn Speak like me off to get the dropdown back.
Write the goal of the conversation
The brief — What this conversation is for, and exactly how to run it. — opens with Goal of the conversation. One line, and the chatbot steers every turn towards it.
Type @ anywhere in this field to name one of your CRM fields or a member of your team. Pick from the list and it drops in as a soft chip with the @ still showing — this is the one field in Raion Hub that keeps it.
Type @ to name a field, so the goal points at a real column rather than a description of one
The limit is 1,000 characters and a counter under the field tracks it.
Write the instructions
Instructions is the big field, and on a chatbot without a playbook it is the single biggest lever you have. The page says as much: Plain language works; numbered steps work best.
The placeholder tells you what it wants:
What should the chatbot do? Be specific — greeting, the questions to ask and in
what order, what to never say, when to hand over to a human.
e.g.
1. Greet and ask which service they need.
2. Ask for their preferred date, then their postcode.
3. Never quote a price above RM500 — hand over instead.The limit is 8,000 characters.
Write the steps in the order you want them asked, and be blunt about the limits — “never quote a price above RM500” is a better instruction than “be careful with pricing”.
If a playbook is running, unlock before you edit
Once a playbook exists, Instructions turns read-only and two buttons appear beside its label: Re-draft playbook and Unlock to edit.
Locked on purpose: the playbook is what runs, so an edit here has no effect until you re-draft
Unlock to edit lets you type, and warns you plainly:
Saving this does not change the live conversation — the playbook runs it. To put these words to work, save, then Re-draft playbook, which rebuilds the stages from them and replaces the ones you have.
Lock puts it back. Re-draft playbook is greyed out while Instructions is empty, and while a draft is already running its label becomes the phase that draft has reached — Reading your instructions…, then Drafting stages…, then Finishing up….
If your instructions have moved on since the playbook was drafted, the helper text says so: These have changed since the playbook was drafted from them. Re-draft to fold the changes in, or leave it — the playbook keeps running either way.
Write the fallback message
If the agent fails to reply holds one field, Fallback message. Something like Sorry, I’m having trouble right now — someone from our team will follow up shortly.
This is not the “I don’t know” reply. It is sent on exactly one path: the chatbot failed to produce a reply at all. What it says when a question is out of scope comes from your instructions, or from the playbook — not from here.
Press Save
The bar at the bottom of the screen counts your changes and carries Discard and Save. Everything on this tab waits for it — except Speak like your team, which saves the moment you touch it.
Success reads Chatbot config saved.
Speak like your team
This section teaches the chatbot how your own team writes on WhatsApp, and then lets it write that way. It needs a connected number, and it saves on each toggle — it never appears in the unsaved-changes count.
The pill in the header is the whole status: Learning, Ready, or In use
| Switch | What it does |
|---|---|
| Learn from my conversations | Learns your team’s WhatsApp writing style. Never prices or facts. |
| Speak like me | Puts the learned style to work. While it is on it replaces the Tone setting above |
Turn learning on first. It needs a number of real examples before there is anything to use, and the pill in the header tells you where it is up to — Learning…, then Ready with a grade of Basic, Good or Complete, then In use once Speak like me is on. A progress bar shows while it is still collecting.
Speak like me can be switched on early: its hint then reads Starts once learning is ready., and it begins on its own when there is enough to work with.
What Details shows you
Details in the section header opens Your team’s tone, with two tabs.
Your team’s style holds How your team writes — a plain description you can edit yourself, with its own Save and Cancel — plus Examples from your team, and two buttons, Rebuild and Delete. Delete asks again as Delete everything learned or Keep.
Keep the description to 8 lines and 1,200 characters; over either and it tells you so rather than trimming it. Saving says Saved - used from the next reply.
Compare is the evidence. It runs a two-week side-by-side test and reports Replies, Typical length, Empty replies, Handed to a human, “Are you a bot?”, Staff stepped in (chats) and Customer replied for your team’s tone against the usual style, followed by sample replies of each and a box where you can try a message of your own.
Two notices can appear here. Temporarily paused by Raion. Your settings are kept. means we have paused learning across all accounts and nothing of yours is lost. The other carries the server’s own reason for switching it off.
If your chatbot shows a v1 · legacy pill
An older chatbot has no Goal of the conversation and no playbook. In place of If the agent fails to reply it has When it can’t help — The exit the agent takes when a question is out of scope — with a Behaviour dropdown:
- Polite decline
- Don’t answer
- Human handover
- Custom response, which adds a Custom reply field
See AI Chatbot for how to move it to v2.
If something goes wrong
| What you see | Why | What to do |
|---|---|---|
| Instructions will not let you type | A playbook is running, so the field is locked | Unlock to edit, or change the behaviour on the Playbook tab instead |
| You saved the instructions and customers see no difference | The playbook is what runs the conversation | Save, then Re-draft playbook — see Build a playbook |
| …characters over the limit — trim before saving. under a field | The field is past its cap — 8,000 for Instructions, 1,000 for the goal | Cut it back; Save stays blocked until you do |
| The Save bar shows a limit message instead of a change count | Same cause, and it is blocking everything else on the page too | Trim the field, then save the rest |
| A brief that was already too long, on a chatbot you inherited | Nothing enforced the cap when it was written | Trim it once, and the page saves normally again |
| Tone is greyed out and reads Like your team | Speak like me is on, and the learned tone replaces the dropdown | Turn Speak like me off if you want a fixed tone |
| Speak like your team is missing | No WhatsApp number is connected, or this is a v1 chatbot | Connect a number, or upgrade the chatbot |
| The pill reads Learning… for a long time | It has not seen enough of your team’s replies yet | Keep replying normally — it collects as your team works |