Customer Agent Activation Guide

Your step-by-step workshop companion

Welcome to your Customer Agent Activation workshop! In this guide, we’ll walk you through everything you need to set up Customer Agent with confidence. These steps come straight from HubSpot’s own Customer Agent Product Manager, Graham O’Connor, and from thousands of live customer deployments, so you’re in good hands.

Customer Agent is most powerful when you start small, follow best practices, and iterate. This guide will show you exactly how to do that.

1. Before You Begin

To ensure your setup goes as smoothly as possible, confirm that the following elements are ready in your HubSpot portal.

1.1 Workspace: Helpdesk or Inbox

If your Customer Agent will be used to support customers:

• Choose Helpdesk (recommended)

• Use Helpdesk if you plan to use tickets or automated handoffs

1.2 Communication Channel Connected

You’ll need at least one channel connected to the workspace:

• Most customers start with Live Chat

• Email is great to add later, but save it for after live-chat testing

1.3 Content to Train Your Agent

Your agent learns from your content. Gather the most common customer questions and ensure your answers exist somewhere accessible, such as:

• HubSpot Knowledge Base

• Website pages, landing pages, blogs

• External documents: PDFs, Word docs

• External URLs (Customer Agent will crawl them)

Tip: Create or improve content before training for best results.

1.4 Enrol in Available Betas (if applicable)

Customers in Beta may see additional options, including lead qualification, calling and CRM sources. Your workshop facilitator will highlight if these apply to you.

2. Setting Up Your Customer Agent

Before you configure Customer Agent, we’ll help you build a strong foundation of knowledge and confidence in the tool. Our process includes targeted guidance, best practice insights, and real examples to ensure you understand how Customer Agent fits your organisation’s needs. 

As we step through this setup together, I’ll advise you on the best practices based on thousands of successful Customer Agent users and direct recommendations from the Product Manager. You can always adjust settings later once you see your Agent in action.

3. Configuration Settings

This section provides a detailed breakdown of each configuration setting, explaining its purpose and outlining the best practice for each one. By understanding what each option controls and following these proven recommendations, you can ensure your Customer Agent is set up for optimal performance and aligned with your specific business needs.

3.1 Agent Identity

3.2 Content Sources

Add the content your agent will learn from.

• Knowledge Base: Enable if you have one
• Website: Enter your website URL so the Customer Agent can crawl it
• External documents/pages: Add any supporting URLs or files

Start small; you can always add more sources later.

3.3 CRM Data Access

For personalised conversations, enable read access for identity properties:

• First Name
• Last Name
• Email
• Phone Number
• Company
• Role

This helps your agent greet and support customers naturally.

3.4 Default Handoff Triggers

Think: When should a human take over?

Ask yourself:
“Are there topics or situations where only a human should respond?”

Popular human-handoff triggers:

• “human”
• “agent”
• “pricing”
• “cancel”
• “refund”
• “live agent”
• “urgent”
• “complaint”
• “demo”
• “quote”

3.4.1 Handoff Type

• Live handoff: Choose if your team already handles real-time live chat
• Async handoff: (beta) Creates a ticket so a team member can follow up later, great for teams without 24/7 staffing

3.5 Agent Goal Defaults

Start with:

• Resolve Issues (default & recommended)

If you are in the beta, you may also see:

• Lead Qualification (still a work-in-progress, but you are welcome to try it and give us feedback)

4. First Deployment: Start With Live Chat

Your first deployment should always be low-risk and controlled.

Recommended approach:

1. Deploy Customer Agent on Live Chat

2. Target just 1–2 low-traffic pages

3. Test thoroughly before expanding

This keeps things safe and manageable during your early learning phase.

5. Chatflow Configuration

When creating your chatflow, apply the following best practices:

6. Workspace Selection

Helpdesk offers more reliable ticket <-> conversation sync and works best with automation workflows used in Customer Agent.

7. Deployment Tips (From HubSpot’s Most Successful Users)

Customers often feel cautious when deploying an AI agent, and that’s completely normal. These steps help build confidence safely:

✔ Start with live chat

It’s self-contained, easy to track, and easy to roll back.

✔ Use the Tester

Ask common questions your customers ask.
If an answer isn’t accurate, update your content, and your agent will improve.

✔ Only move to email after live chat success

Email deployment has more risk, so build confidence first.

✔ Use workflows to derisk email deployment

This will soon be even easier thanks to upcoming updates.

✔ You can also start with rule-based bot deployment

Ideal if you want a hybrid approach where the bot begins the conversation before the Customer Agent steps in.

8. Helpful Betas You May See

You may have access to the following:

• Lead Qualification

• Voice Channel assignment

• Read/Write CRM Properties

Your facilitator will confirm availability.

9. Coming Soon (What HubSpot Is Improving)

HubSpot is actively working on features that make deployment even safer:

• Agent Working Hours – set times when the agent should respond

• Percentage Rollout – let the agent handle a % of conversations

• Simplified workflow deployment

• Out-of-the-box test email channel – zero-risk testing

These will make it easier to gradually roll out Customer Agent.

10. Continuous Improvement

Your Customer Agent gets smarter over time. Make sure to:

• Review conversation transcripts regularly

• Identify Knowledge Gaps

• Add or update content to improve answer quality

• Expand your deployment once successful

Customer Agent is a long-term teammate,  train it like one.

🎉 You’re Ready to Activate Your Customer Agent

This guide is your reference as you configure, test, and deploy Customer Agent. Start small, follow best practices, learn from your content, and gradually expand your rollout.

If you have questions during the workshop, your facilitator will guide you step-by-step.