Bot Instructions
Control what your bot says, how it responds and what it avoids.
Company
Zendesk AI Agents, Berlin
Sr. Product Designer
3 weeks (2024)
Role
Timeline
Disclaimer: The designs, concepts, and product details shared here are intended solely to demonstrate my design process and contribution. All intellectual property remains with the respective companies. Confidential information has been omitted and certain details have been generalised where necessary.
Zendesk's zGPT could answer questions from knowledge sources, but gave users very little control over how the bot actually behaved. Four tones of voice, two of which were functionally identical, and two answer lengths. Bot Instructions changed that, letting customers write free-text instructions in natural language that could be added, edited, activated, or deleted at any time.
PROBLEM STATEMENT
zGPT’s generative AI was powerful but offered limited customization, leading to user dissatisfaction and lost deals. Customers needed greater control over bot behavior, including the ability to add free-text instructions and fine-tune responses, to protect brand integrity and meet diverse customer service needs.
UNDERSTANDING REQUIREMENTS
Requirements for this feature came directly from the CS team, who were closest to what clients actually needed. Their messages and feedback gave us a clear picture of how real users wanted to communicate with their bots — in plain, natural language rather than rigid rules or configurations. This grounded the design in actual client behaviour from the start, making sure what we built solved a real problem rather than an assumed one.
.png)
SOLUTION
Simplified Layout
A simplified layout makes key controls and bot behaviors visible at a glance, so non-technical users can configure bots without hunting through menus. Fewer clicks and clearer labels speed setup, reduce errors, and get customers to value faster.
Sandbox testing
Enables users to test and refine their custom instructions before publishing them live. This feature helps prevent errors and ensures configurations meet user expectations, reducing the risk of production issues.
Bulk testing lets users select multiple instructions at once and test them together in a sandbox environment, directly from the listing page. This lets you see how instructions interact with each other before anything goes live, catching conflicts early and saving a lot of back and forth later.
THE IMPACT
Bot Instructions was directly tied to one of Zendesk's most important business targets. When users have real control over how their bot behaves, the bot gets better at handling actual conversations.
Better instructions meant more accurate responses, which meant more customer issues resolved without a human ever stepping in. The feature wasn't just a customisation tool. It was a direct lever for moving the needle on automated resolutions at scale
Increased automated resolution rate from
4.1% to 9.4%
© 2026 by Rajashri Achar. Created on Wix Studio.