How to prepare your AI agent for a busy season or a sale
Busy weeks are when an AI agent earns its keep, and also when a gap in its brief costs the most. A sale price it does not know, a delivery cut-off it gets wrong or a hand-over nobody picks up can turn a good week into a stream of corrections. This guide walks you through getting ready two weeks before, the week before and on the day, with sample brief lines, a worked conversation, what the sending limits mean when messages pile up, and how to switch everything back afterwards.
What changes in a busy week
- More conversations, often arriving in bursts after a post, an email or a story.
- New questions: sale prices, what is included, delivery cut-offs, gift wrapping, extra opening hours.
- Less time for you and your team to pick up hand-overs.
- More customers who are new to you and do not know how you work.
Each of these needs a small change to how your agent works. None of them needs a new setup. Most of the work is in the business brief, the note in Spaces your agent reads before it replies.
Two weeks before
- List the questions you expect. Look back at last year's busy weeks if you can, or ask your team what customers ask most at this time of year.
- Write the answers down in plain sentences, with dates and prices exactly as you want them said.
- Decide what a person must handle. In a sale that often includes price-match requests, faulty items, large orders and anything about a delivery that has already gone wrong.
- Decide who picks up hand-overs on each day of the busy period, and how fast.
- Check your accounts are connected and healthy. Your agent can check each account's health and how much room it has left today.
Brief lines for a sale
Add a dated section to the top of your brief, so the agent sees it first and you can remove it in one go afterwards. Names and details are examples.
WINTER SALE: Friday 27 November to Monday 30 November only.
- 20% off all knitwear and coats. Not on gift cards or new arrivals.
- Online orders before 2pm ship the same day. After 2pm, the next day.
- Last order for delivery before Christmas: Friday 18 December.
- Sale items can be returned within 14 days for a refund.
- If someone asks for the sale price before Friday, say it starts on
Friday and do not offer it early.
- Price-match requests, faulty items and orders over 10 items: hand the
chat to Mia and say she will reply today.
- On Tuesday 1 December, this section no longer applies. Normal prices.The last line matters. An agent will keep using sale prices for as long as they are in the brief, so give the section an end date and remove it when the sale ends.
A worked example
Here is how the clothing shop's agent might handle a sale question on Instagram. Names and details are examples.
| Who | Message |
|---|---|
| Customer | is the green wool coat in the sale?? and will it come before xmas |
| Agent | Yes, all coats are 20% off until Monday. If you order before 2pm today it ships today, and we deliver well before Christmas. Want the link to the green one? |
| Customer | yes pls. also can you match the price on another site |
| Agent | I've passed the price-match question to Mia, who will reply here today. Here's the coat in the meantime: [link] |
The agent answered the sale and delivery question straight from the brief, handed over the one thing it was told to hand over, and still moved the customer towards buying.
What the sending limits mean when it gets busy
Spaces keeps every connected account inside safe sending limits, because a sudden burst of messages from one account is exactly what platforms watch for. In a busy week this matters, so it helps to know what to expect.
| Channel | Gap between messages | Messages a day on each account |
|---|---|---|
| At least 10 seconds | Up to 400 | |
| At least 15 seconds | Up to 150 | |
| Messenger | At least 20 seconds | Up to 50 |
| At least 30 seconds | Up to 100 |
On WhatsApp, a reply to someone who wrote in is never held back by the daily limits, so customers who message you still get answers on your busiest day. On email, a reply to an email that arrived in the last week is never held back by the daily limits either. The daily caps mostly matter for new chats you start, which in a busy week should be few.
If an account reaches a limit, Spaces holds the message back and tells the agent to wait, rather than sending and risking the account. Replies may take a little longer in the busiest hour, which is far better than an account being restricted in the middle of your sale. The limits page has every number.
Telling customers about the sale
This is where many owners go wrong. Spaces is for answering people who write to you and for people who know you and expect to hear from you. It is not a broadcast tool. Spaces refuses the same cold text sent to many people, and on WhatsApp the same or nearly the same message goes to at most a couple of new people a day.
- Announce the sale where people already look: your Instagram posts and stories, your website, a sign in the shop and your usual email newsletter tool.
- Let customers come to you. When they message, the agent is ready with every answer.
- For regulars who asked to hear about sales, a short personal message is fine. Keep it to people who said yes, and stop the moment anyone says stop.
Hand-overs when the team is stretched
In a busy week, hand-overs are the first thing to fall behind. Plan for it.
- Name one person each day whose job includes checking hand-overs at set times.
- Give the agent a realistic reply time to promise, such as "today" or "within a few hours", and change it if you fall behind.
- Ask the agent to tag handed-over chats by reason, such as price match or faulty item, so the right person picks each one up.
- Keep the hand-over list short. In a sale, the agent should answer everything in the sale section of the brief on its own.
On the day
- First thing, ask your agent the three most likely sale questions and check the answers.
- Check hand-overs at the times you planned, such as every two hours.
- If something in the brief turns out to be wrong, such as a sold-out size, ask the agent to update that one part straight away.
- If anything goes badly wrong, pause all sending in Settings with Pause everything while you sort it out. Reading keeps working.
Afterwards
- Remove the sale section from the brief on the day it ends.
- Ask the agent: "is there anything in my brief that mentions the sale?" and remove what it finds.
- Cancel any scheduled messages that mention the sale.
- Read a handful of the busiest day's chats and note what to do differently next time.
- Keep the sale section somewhere safe, so next year you start from it rather than from nothing.
Common mistakes
- Adding sale prices with no end date, so the agent keeps quoting them.
- Forgetting the small print: what is excluded, the returns rule and delivery cut-offs.
- Trying to message every past customer about the sale from WhatsApp or Instagram.
- Promising "a person will reply within the hour" when nobody can.
- Changing the brief in a hurry and replacing all of it instead of one part.
Who you message
Summing up
Two weeks before, write down the questions and answers and plan who picks up hand-overs. Add a dated section to the top of the brief. Announce the sale in the places customers already look, and let the agent answer the people who write in. When it ends, take the section out the same day.
Pricing
FAQ
Can my AI agent send a sale announcement to all my customers?
No. Spaces is for answering people who write to you and messaging people who expect to hear from you, and it refuses the same cold text sent to many people. Announce the sale in your posts, website and newsletter, and let the agent answer the people who get in touch.
What happens if lots of messages arrive at once?
The agent replies to each one, paced inside the limits Spaces keeps on every account. If an account reaches a limit, Spaces tells the agent to wait rather than sending. Replies may take a little longer in the busiest hour.
How do I stop the agent quoting sale prices after the sale?
Give the sale section an end date and remove it from your business brief on the day the sale ends. Then ask the agent whether anything in the brief still mentions the sale.
Should I hold replies as drafts during a sale?
Usually not for the whole sale, because drafts slow replies down when they matter most. A good middle path is to hold replies as drafts for the first hour, check them, then let replies send on their own.
Can I raise the sending limits for a busy week?
No. The limits are there to keep your accounts safe, and a sudden burst is exactly what platforms watch for. On WhatsApp, replies to people who wrote in are never held back by the daily limits.
Who should pick up hand-overs during the sale?
Name one person for each day and give them set times to check. Ask the agent to tag hand-overs by reason, so each chat goes to the person who can answer it.
What should I do after the sale is over?
Remove the sale section from the brief, cancel any scheduled messages that mention it, and read a few of the busiest chats. Save the section so you can reuse it next time.