Quickstart
This guide walks you through the essential steps to get Distance live and responding to customers using AI Chat and AI Voice from a single platform.
Quickstart helps you set up Distance so your AI agents can begin handling real customer conversations with confidence.
By completing these steps, you’ll ensure your business information is accurate, agents are properly configured, and at least one channel is ready to receive and manage customer inquiries.
Start by providing basic business details. This information is used by your AI agents when responding to customers.
Go to Knowledge base → Business information
What to add:
Company name - How agents refer to your business in conversations and follow-ups. Use your exact brand name.
Business overview - Set up your profile to help your Distance agent provide accurate responses.
Train your agent - Link your website or Google Business Profile so Distance can learn about your business. Click Edit to enter the details, then click Retrain your Agent to save them.
Add your company name, business overview, and training sources for your AI agent. Use your exact brand name, then link your website or Google Business Profile so Distance can learn about your business and respond accurately.
Providing accurate business information ensures your AI agents can answer customer questions confidently, describe your services correctly, and provide consistent responses across chat, SMS, and calls. This reduces confusion, builds trust, and minimizes the need for manual follow-ups.
Distance includes AI Chat and AI Voice agents that handle conversations automatically.
Go to Agents.
Adjust tone, response length, and scripts if needed.
Agents define how your business communicates with customers. Reviewing them early ensures responses sound appropriate, follow your preferred flow, and reflect how you want your business represented. You can start with the default setup and refine behavior over time as you learn from real conversations.
Choose how customers will reach your business:
Live chat for your website
SMS and calls using a business phone number
Facebook or Instagram inboxes
Go to Channels → Connect channels and connect at least one channel to begin receiving conversations.
Connecting channels allows Distance to capture customer inquiries wherever they occur. The more channels you connect, the fewer messages you miss, and the easier it becomes to manage conversations from a single inbox instead of switching between platforms.
Once a channel is connected, assign the appropriate AI agent to handle incoming conversations.
Assign an AI Chat agent for live chat, social inboxes, and/or SMS.
Confirm the AI Voice agent assigned to handle calls.
Agent assignment ensures every incoming message or call is handled automatically. Without this step, conversations may not receive responses or be logged correctly. Proper assignment keeps interactions consistent and prevents gaps in coverage.
Before going live, test the experience from a customer’s perspective.
Send a test chat or SMS.
Call your business number or Talk to your agent.
You can also test your AI Voice agent directly without going through your phone system: navigate to Agents → AI Voice, click Edit on the voice agent you want to test, and click Talk to your agent. This allows you to simulate a live call and experience how the agent responds.
Confirm that responses, transcripts, and tickets appear as expected. Testing helps validate that scripts, escalation rules, and agent behavior match your expectations, and ensures your call forwarding and conversation handling work properly.
Once live, Distance automatically logs conversations and creates tickets when follow-up or escalation is required.
Use Inbox to manage conversations.
Use Tickets to track follow-ups, escalations, and unresolved requests.
Monitoring conversations and tickets ensures nothing slips through the cracks. Having transcripts, context, and ticket history available in one place helps your team stay organized and respond more effectively as volume increases.
What’s next?
After completing Quickstart, you can continue refining your setup by:
Improving AI scripts and knowledge content
Customizing Live Chat appearance and behavior
Setting escalation and transfer rules
Adding more channels as your business grows
Distance is designed to improve over time. As you add more context and fine-tune behavior, your AI agents become more accurate, efficient, and aligned with how your business operates.
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