Writing a good Character
Your Character is the one thing your AI reads on every single reply. Get this right and everything else follows from it.
Your Character is the one thing your assistant reads on every single reply. Get this right and tone, accuracy, and knowing when to hand off all follow from it.
What this field is for, and what it isn't
Character is for rules the AI must follow on every reply: your identity, your tone, your hard policies, when to hand off. It is sent in full, every time, so it should stay tight and direct, not a full manual.
Detailed reference material, prices, service lists, addresses, terms, belongs in your Knowledge Base instead, where the AI looks things up only when relevant. If a fact needs to be right every time and comes up often, like a phone number, put it in Character anyway, don't rely on lookup for anything you can't afford to miss.
Character has a combined limit of 8,000 characters across all its sections. Over the limit, saving is disabled until you trim it down.
The six things a good Character covers
- 1
Who you are
One or two sentences: business name, what you do, what's temporarily unavailable if anything.
- 2
How it should sound
Don't just say "be friendly." Say what friendly looks like for you: short replies or long, formal or casual, one emoji or none, and explicitly ban whatever makes it sound like a bot.
- 3
What language to reply in
If you serve more than one language, say which language triggers which reply language, and give exact spelling for any word that's easy to get wrong.
- 4
Your hard rules
Anything that's a firm policy, not a preference, gets spelled out explicitly with an example sentence. Vague rules get interpreted loosely; example sentences get followed.
- 5
When to stay quiet or redirect
Tell the AI what's out of scope and what it should do instead of guessing.
- 6
When to hand off to a human
List the specific triggers: an emergency, an angry customer, an explicit request for a human, anything outside your Knowledge Base. Say what to collect first, if anything, otherwise it may hand off with zero context.
A worked example
This is adapted from a real Woozi Character, for a home healthcare service. It's all prose, no bullet points inside the actual instructions, each rule includes a concrete example, and it ends with hard rules stated plainly:
We are [Business], a [what you do] in [where]. [What's paused or unavailable, if anything.]
Write like a calm, knowledgeable staff member texting a customer, never like a chatbot or a form. Reply in two to three short sentences, never as a numbered list or bullet points.
Reply in the language the customer uses. [Language-specific rule with an example, if relevant.]
Stay strictly on topic. If someone asks something unrelated, don't answer it, redirect them to how you can help instead.
[Any firm policy], for example "[a full example sentence showing exactly how to phrase it]".
When a customer explicitly asks for a human, first ask [name or reason], then hand off. Hand off immediately for: [list your specific triggers].
Always have this contact information available: [phone, address, etc.]
Common mistakes worth avoiding
- Vague tone instructions. "Be warm and professional" alone tends to produce generic, robotic replies. Say explicitly: short sentences, no bullet points, no repeated openers.
- Assuming the AI knows real-world facts it hasn't been given. The current time is the one exception, Woozi always tells it automatically. Everything else needs to be written here or in your Knowledge Base.
- Forgetting language-specific vocabulary traps. If a word in your language looks like a completely different word, say so explicitly with an example.
- No plan for "I want to talk to a human." Without an explicit rule, the AI may hand off with zero context, or never hand off at all.
- Contact info only in the Knowledge Base. Simple search can miss short, frequently-needed facts like phone numbers. Put these in Character directly.
Using the Knowledge Base
Character is what the AI always has in mind. Knowledge Base is what it looks up when it needs to, detailed facts that come up sometimes, not every reply.
By default, Woozi searches your documents for the same words the customer used. If you bring your own OpenAI or Anthropic key, it can instead work out what the customer means, not just match their exact wording, so it still finds the right document when they phrase things differently or write in another language.
Good candidates: pricing tables, full terms and policies, service descriptions, less time-sensitive facts.
Keep these in Character instead: contact information, hard policies, tone and language rules, handoff triggers.
Split documents by topic into a few focused files rather than one giant one, for example "Services & Pricing," "Terms & Policies," "Contact & Location." Smaller, focused documents retrieve more accurately than one long one.
Common questions
How long can my Character be?
Up to 8,000 characters in total, across every section combined. Saving is disabled if you go over, so trim it down first.
Where do I put my FAQs?
In the Knowledge Base, as one or more documents. Character is for rules the AI always follows, not a place for long reference material.
Does Woozi know what time it is when replying?
Yes, the current time is passed to it automatically. You don't need to write that in your Character.