Define tools and skills
The agent can now efficiently answer questions, but what additional steps can it take? For example, can it:
- Recommend additional products?
- Provide order tracking information?
- Send applicable coupons and discounts?
You can power your Agent to handle these additional inquiries with skills and tools.
Skills define the way in which Customer Agent can handle a specific type of request. Skills are great for repetitive customer requests, and tell Customer Agent when this situation occurs, how to handle it, and what tools it should use to retrieve and share specific data.
Tools are the specific capabilities Customer Agent can use during a conversation. Tools help the Agent perform certain actions and retrieve data. Tools only run when they’re being used by a skill. 3 categories of tools include: fetch data, take action, or integrate with external systems.
Skills define the way in which Customer Agent can handle a specific type of request. Skills are great for repetitive customer requests, and tell Customer Agent when this situation occurs, how to handle it, and what tools it should use to retrieve and share specific data.
Tools are the specific capabilities Customer Agent can use during a conversation. Tools help the Agent perform certain actions and retrieve data. Tools only run when they’re being used by a skill. 3 categories of tools include: fetch data, take action, or integrate with external systems.
Explore an example scenario with Agent skills and tools
What the customer asked
A customer asks Beantown Coffee’s Customer Agent for a new product recommendation, because they really enjoyed their cacao tea.
What skill handled the request
Beantown Coffee has a Product recommendations skill that Customer Agent can use for this exact scenario. To handle this request, it searches Beantown’s catalog, and then responds with clear recommendations based on this preference.
What tools it used
This skill uses a Shopify tool called Search Product Catalog, which ultimately enables Customer Agent to query the product catalog to surface the right recommendation.
Explore out-of-the-box tools
What’s great about Customer Agent is that you don’t have to start from scratch; upon setup, it already comes with some out-of-the-box tools ready for use!
If you’re in the beta for creating fully custom tools, you can see the full list of preset tools on the Tools page. If you’re not, you can view which tools a skill uses by clicking into that skill’s details.
Review the table below to learn a bit more about some of these preset tools. Keep in mind that this is not an exhaustive list of tools; you can view all available tools in your Klaviyo account.
Tool | What it does |
|---|---|
Get Customer Orders | Fetches recent customer orders from Shopify |
Search Shop Catalog | Searches for products from the online store, hosted on Shopify |
Search Company Knowledge | Looks up company knowledge across indexed webpages, uploaded files, and snippets of text |
Get Customer Coupons | Fetches customer coupons for the provided profile ID |
Get Customer Subscriptions | Fetches subscriptions for the provided profile ID |
Get Product Recommendations | Fetches personalized product recommendations based on customer preferences and interests |
Update Order Shipping Address | replaces the full shipping address on one of the customer’s own orders, as long as the order hasn’t already been fulfilled |
Edit Order | Lets the agent change line items on a shopper’s own order from Shopify |
Get Profile* | Fetches customer profile data |
Get Profile Events* | Retrieves recent profile activity: orders, email engagement, form submissions, subscriptions, and site activity |
Get Profile Lists and Segments* | Fetches the active lists, segments, or both for the authenticated shopper |
Get Profile Predictive Summary* | Returns Klaviyo’s predictive analytics for the shopper: customer lifetime value, churn risk, purchase predictions, and customer health |
Update Profile Property* | Updates a single custom property on the authenticated shopper’s profile |
5 of these preset tools are profile tools, indicated by the asterisks in the table above. Profile tools help you automatically enrich your profiles with data collected via Agent conversations. Learn more about the profile tools available in Klaviyo.
Explore out-of-the-box skills
Just like tools, Customer Agent comes with some skills ready to use as soon as it’s set up. Review the table below to learn a bit more about each of these preset skills.
Skill | What it does | Prerequisites | Example shopper question |
|---|---|---|---|
Product recommendations | Suggests products based on shopper preferences and browsing context. | Shopify | "What do you recommend for sensitive skin?" |
Order tracking & management | Looks up order status, shipping info, and tracking links. | Shopify | "Where is my order?" |
General Q&A | Answers brand and product questions using your indexed content. | None | "What's your return policy?" |
Coupon & discount retrieval | Retrieves existing discount codes the shopper is eligible for. Does not generate new codes. | Shopify, Coupons configured in Content | "Do I have any active discounts?" |
Returns & exchanges | Initiates returns and exchanges through your returns provider. | Loop or Aftership | "I want to return this jacket." |
Subscription editing | Pauses, resumes, skips, and updates subscriptions. | Recharge or Skio (Skio: active subscriptions only) | "Skip my next delivery." |
Loyalty | Looks up loyalty point balances, redemptions, and rewards. | Yotpo or Smile.io | "How many points do I have?" |
Escalations | Detects when a customer needs a human agent and hands off with context. | Zendesk, Gorgias, or other third party Helpdesks via specified email address | “I need to change my payment method.” |
Collect Info / Profile Enrichment | Conversationally collect info to personalize offers. | None | Customer: "What size should I get?" Agent: "What's your usual shoe size?" Customer: "My usual shoe size is X." |
Customer Agent provides out-of-the-box skills and tools so you can ramp up your Agent quickly and easily.
But, what happens if you want your Agent to do more than what’s listed above? In the next lesson, we’ll talk about how to solve for each of your brand’s unique use cases using custom skills.