Behavior

Here you will learn how to create your own AI assistants.

To create an AI phone assistant with fonio, there are 7 simple steps. After that, the assistant is ready to use immediately.

1. Choose voice
   Select the appropriate personality for your AI answering machine from various AI voices.

2. Set language
   Choose which language(s) your assistant should speak.

3. Set start message
   Define the greeting with which your AI assistant begins each conversation.

4. Customize prompt
   Adjust the behavior of the phone AI by setting conversation rules and information to be requested. You can use our prompt templates here.

5. Set up phone number
   Purchase a dedicated number for your AI answering machine and integrate it into your workflow via call forwarding.

6. Set up tools (optional)
   Define which capabilities (tools) the assistant can use during the call, such as forwarding, web search, or calendar booking.

7. Post-processing (optional)
   Define how the assistant should process completed conversations, for example via SMS, email, or API.

Details on the individual steps

Choose voice
Find the right voice for your AI assistant.

Choose language
Decide which language(s) your assistant should speak.

Start message
Set the message with which the assistant begins the conversation.

Prompting
Learn how to create the perfect prompt for your use case.

When customizing your AI assistant's behavior in Step 4 (Prompt customization), you may encounter pronunciation challenges with company names, product names, or email addresses. Use phonetic spelling in your prompt to ensure correct pronunciation:

Names with special characters:

• "Müller" → "Mü-ller"

• "Dülk" → "Dü-lk"

• "Stangl" → "Schtangl"

• "Reidl" → "Raidl"

Email addresses:

• Use "at" for @

• Use "punkt" for . (or "dot" in English)

• Use "minus" for - (or "dash" in English)

• Example: "schulung@lzg-akademie-rlp.de" → "schulung at LZG minus akademie minus RLP punkt De-e"

Number and Date Pronunciation

If your assistant needs to repeat numbers, dates, or numerical sequences (like article numbers, phone numbers, or IDs) back to callers, you may find the pronunciation unclear or garbled. To improve clarity, add this prompt template to the end of your assistant's prompt:

### PROTOCOL FOR DATE AND NUMBER PRECISION

1. DATE FORMATTING (PRONUNCIATION):
   Never read a date as a pure number sequence. Always convert dates to text for speech output and use commas for artificial pauses.
   - RULE: [Day of week] + [Pause] + [Day as ordinal number] + [Pause] + [Month as word] + [Pause] + [Year in two-digit blocks].
   - EXAMPLE: Instead of "13.03.2024" say: "Wednesday, the thirteenth, March, two thousand, twenty-four."

2. MONTH RULE:
   To avoid confusion (e.g., "fifth" vs. "sixth"), ALWAYS use the month name as a word (January, February, etc.) instead of the month number. This massively increases comprehensibility.

3. TIME SPECIFICATIONS:
   Clearly separate hours and minutes with the word for your language's equivalent of "o'clock".
   - EXAMPLE: Instead of "14:30" say: "14 o'clock, [Pause] 30".

4. NUMBER SEQUENCE RHYTHM:
   For long numbers (IDs, postal codes), place a comma after each digit. This forces the TTS engine to pronounce the endings of numbers (e.g., the "t" in "eight") cleanly instead of slurring them.
   - FORMAL: "8, 9, 1, [Pause] 2, 2".

5. ARTICULATION INSTRUCTION:
   Imagine you're speaking to someone who is hard of hearing or in a noisy environment. Over-emphasize consonants at the end of words (e.g., "thir-TEEN", "four-TEEN"). Keep speaking speed at 80% of your normal pace when stating dates and numbers.

### GOAL
Maximum clarity by avoiding number chains and using month names and artificial speech pauses.

Handling unknown caller information:

## Aussprache-Regeln (Pronunciation Rules)
- Bei Unsicherheit: "Bitte buchstabiere Vor- und Nachnamen."
  (When uncertain: "Please spell out first and last names.")
- E-Mails immer aussprechen lassen: "name at domain punkt De-e"
  (Always have emails spoken out: "name at domain dot de")
- Falls unklar: "Ich habe die E-Mail so verstanden: 'name at domain punkt De-e'. 
  Stimmt das? Wenn nein, bitte langsam buchstabieren."
  (If unclear: "I understood the email as: 'name at domain dot de'. 
  Is that correct? If not, please spell it slowly.")

Set up phone number
Purchase a phone number for your assistant directly on the platform.

When setting up your phone number in Step 5, be aware that the AI assistant answers calls immediately without any ring delay. If you need a delay before the assistant picks up, this must be configured in your phone system's call forwarding settings, not within the fonio platform.

Tools
Define which tools your assistant can use during the call.

Post-processing
Decide how the AI should further process completed conversations so you stay well informed.