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While procedures teach RAUM AI what to do, guidelines teach it how to communicate. The Answerer Agent reads the relevant guidelines before generating every reply, ensuring your responses stay on-brand regardless of which tickets RAUM AI handles. Guidelines are channel-specific, so you can use a warmer tone on chat while keeping email replies more formal.

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What guidelines control

  • Tone and style — formal vs. conversational, use of contractions, sentence length, and level of technical detail
  • Brand voice — vocabulary your team uses or avoids, phrases that reflect your company’s personality
  • Channel rules — different formatting expectations for email, live chat, social media, and phone transcripts
  • Response templates — structured opening and closing lines, escalation language, or required disclaimers

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Supported channels

You can create separate guidelines for each communication channel:
ChannelWhen it applies
EmailZendesk tickets with an email channel or with no channel set
ChatTickets routed through Zendesk Chat or Messaging
SocialTickets originating from Twitter/X, Facebook, or other social integrations
PhoneTickets created from call transcripts or voicemail-to-text
If no channel-specific guideline exists for a given ticket, RAUM AI falls back to a general guideline if you have created one.

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Create or edit a guideline

1

Open Guidelines

Click Guidelines in the RAUM AI dashboard sidebar.
2

Create a new guideline

Click New guideline. If you are editing an existing one, click its title to open the editor.
3

Select a channel

Choose the channel this guideline applies to from the Channel dropdown: email, chat, social, or phone. You can also leave it as general to apply it across all channels.
4

Write the guideline content

Describe the tone, style, and structural rules you want RAUM AI to follow. Be explicit — the Answerer Agent follows these instructions literally. See example guidelines below.
5

Add response templates (optional)

In the Templates section, add reusable opening lines, closing lines, or full response fragments. Reference them by name in your guideline content.
6

Save

Click Save. The guideline is applied to new tickets immediately.

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Tone settings

RAUM AI interprets natural-language tone instructions — you do not configure tone through a slider or dropdown. Write your expectations directly in the guideline content:
  • “Use a warm, friendly tone. Address the customer by their first name if it is available.”
  • “Keep replies concise — no more than three paragraphs. Avoid bullet lists.”
  • “Use formal English. Do not use contractions. Do not end a sentence with a preposition.”
  • “Mirror the customer’s language level. If they write casually, respond casually.”

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Example guidelines

The examples below show patterns that produce reliable results alongside common mistakes to avoid. 
You are responding on behalf of Acme Support via email.

Tone: Professional and warm. Use the customer's first name in the greeting.
Structure: Open with a greeting, address the customer's concern directly in the
second sentence, provide the resolution or next steps, and close with a polite
sign-off that includes the agent's name placeholder.

Always include a case reference number in the format "Case #[ticket_id]" in the
opening paragraph.

Do not: apologize more than once per email, use the phrase "per my last email",
or include internal system references.

Be nice and helpful.
This provides no actionable instructions. “Nice” and “helpful” are subjective — RAUM AI needs explicit rules about structure, format, and prohibited phrases to produce consistent output.
You are responding in a live chat window. Replies must be short — two to four
sentences maximum per message.

Tone: Casual, upbeat, and direct. Contractions are fine.

Do not include formal closings or subject lines. If resolution requires more than
three chat messages, offer to send a follow-up email summary.

You are responding to a public social media message. The reply may be visible to
other customers.

Keep the reply to two sentences or fewer. Acknowledge the customer's concern,
then direct them to a private channel (DM or email) for resolution.

Do not: share account details, reference internal ticket numbers, or make
commitments about refunds or replacements in a public reply.

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Response templates

Response templates let you define reusable reply fragments that the AI can include verbatim. Common uses include:
  • Legal disclaimers required by your terms of service
  • Standard escalation language (“A member of our specialist team will contact you within 24 hours”)
  • Closing lines with contact information
To add a template, open a guideline in the editor and click Add template in the Templates section. Give the template a name and write its content. Reference the template by name in your guideline instructions: “End all email replies with the standard-email-footer template.”
Guidelines apply at reply-generation time, after RAUM AI has already researched the answer using your procedures and integrations. A well-written guideline improves how the answer is communicated, but it does not change what the answer is.