How to Set Up HubSpot’s Customer Agent the Right Way

HubSpot’s new Customer Agent represents one of the most significant platform updates in recent years. It replaces traditional scripted chatbots with a powerful AI assistant that answers questions, understands context, and guides visitors to the correct next step. However, like any AI model, the quality of its output hinges entirely on the quality of its setup.

Through our own implementation at Growth London and by supporting clients with early adoption, we have developed a structured, reliable approach that ensures the Customer Agent is accurate, helpful, and aligned with your brand. This guide walks you through exactly how to set it up correctly.

1. What HubSpot’s Customer Agent Actually Is

The Customer Agent is HubSpot’s AI-powered assistant that appears through your website’s chat widget, support inbox, or knowledge base. Its purpose is to:

• Answer visitor questions using approved knowledge
• Guide people to the most relevant pages and resources
• Explain your services clearly and accurately
• Reduce repetitive enquiries for your support and sales teams
• Book meetings or hand over to a human when appropriate

It is not a chatbot in the traditional sense. It does not rely on scripts or decision trees. Instead, it uses a combination of:

• Uploaded knowledge sources
• Website content (optional)
• Knowledge base articles (optional)
• Brand Identity settings
• Guardrails
• Handoff routes

When configured correctly, the Customer Agent operates as a knowledgeable, on-brand front line assistant for your business.

2. Before You Start: Prerequisites for a Successful Customer Agent

A Customer Agent is only as good as the foundation you give it. Before activating it, you need:

1. A high-quality Master Knowledge Document

This should include your services, ICPs, case studies, FAQs, pain points, and fallback responses. Think of this as a single document that fully describes your business and what you do. 

🧠 Top tip - you can use AI to brainstorm the outline and contents for this document

2. Clean, up-to-date website content

If your website is outdated, inconsistent, or unclear, the Customer Agent will inherit those weaknesses.

🧠 Top tip - you can carefully review and select exactly which website pages, landing pages and blog posts the agent has access to and which to exclude.

3. Clear Brand Identity settings in HubSpot

Tone, voice, and messaging need to be defined so that the agent behaves consistently. Take your time to set this up properly once and for all - it will pay dividends in the long run.

4. Guardrails and disallowed topics

These are essential to prevent hallucinations and ensure factual accuracy.

5. An established human escalation path

For example, the agent should share your HubSpot Meetings booking link if the user asks about specific topics, such as pricing or talking to sales, etc.

6. A defined ICP

The agent should have a clear view of who you serve, what you offer, and who is not a fit.

This preparation ensures your Customer Agent starts from a strong, on-brand foundation.

3. How the Customer Agent Thinks (In Plain English)

Understanding how the model processes information helps you structure your inputs correctly.

The Customer Agent can:

• Read and synthesise all approved knowledge sources
• Reference your Brand Identity settings
• Learn from your Q&A section
• Interpret website content if you allow crawling
• Decide whether it is confident enough to answer
• Choose when to escalate to a human

The Customer Agent cannot:

• Access CRM data
• Read contact, company, or deal records
• Execute tasks
• Trigger workflows
• Reference dashboards or reports
• Use scripts or decision flows

How the Customer Agent prioritises information:

1. Your uploaded knowledge files
2. Your Brand Identity and tone rules
3. Allowed and disallowed topics
4. Website content (if enabled)
5. General model reasoning

If your uploaded content is well structured, the agent becomes far more accurate. If your inputs are messy or conflicting, the agent becomes inconsistent.

This is why we believe a comprehensive, well-structured "Master Knowledge Document" is central to your success.

4. Step-by-Step Setup Process

Below is a practical walkthrough of how to configure the Customer Agent correctly in HubSpot.

Step 1. Create the agent

Go to Settings > Tools > Customer Agents > Create Customer Agent.

Give it a simple, trustworthy name such as “Growth London Assistant”.

Step 2. Define the Agent Purpose

This guides its behaviour. For example:

“Assist visitors by providing accurate information about Growth London’s HubSpot CRM and CMS services. Direct users to relevant content, answer questions using approved knowledge sources, and escalate to a human when necessary.”

Keep it clear and factual.

Step 3. Add your primary knowledge source

Upload your Master Knowledge Document. This should be your single source of truth for:

• Company overview
• Your core ICPs and target audience
• Your Products/Services
• Key Case studies
• Pain points
• Q&A
• Fallbacks
• Guardrails (e.g. topic to avoid)
• What you do not offer

If possible, avoid uploading multiple fragmented documents. Consistency matters.

Step 4. Add your Brand Identity inputs

Define:

• Tone of voice
• Writing style
• Messaging guidelines
• ICP summary
• Key positioning statements

This ensures the agent communicates the way your brand does.

Step 5. Add guardrails and disallowed topics

Tell the agent:

• What it must not answer
• What it must not guess
• What is outside your service offering
• When to refer users to a human

This drastically reduces hallucinations.

Step 6. Configure the handoff experience

Set up your escalation rules. For example, escalate when users ask about:

• Pricing
• Technical integration queries
• Detailed CRM architecture advice
• Anything requiring access to their portal

Route users to:

• A booking link
• A live chat with a human
• A contact page

We recommend using your HubSpot Meetings link for consistency.

Step 7. Manage website crawling

HubSpot allows you to choose whether the Customer Agent can read your site.

We recommend:

• Allowing crawling for key service and industry pages, case studies, and relevant blogs
• Depending on your requirements, you might choose to exclude pricing pages, outdated content, and client-specific areas

Ideally, your Master Knowledge Document remains the primary source.

Step 8. Test thoroughly

Test using real-world queries such as:

• “What does Growth London do?”
• “Can you help with Salesforce?”
• “How long does a CRM implementation take?”
• “How much do you charge?”
• “Can you manage my PPC campaigns?”
• “Can you fix my HubSpot data model?”
• “Do you build websites?”
• “Can you write blog posts for us?”

You should also test leading questions designed to tempt hallucination.

Step 9. Review and optimise with analytics

HubSpot’s analytics dashboard shows:

• Successful versus unsuccessful answers
• Confidence levels
• Topics asked
• Handoff frequency
• Conversation paths

Use these insights to update your knowledge sources and improve performance over time.

5. Preparing High Quality Knowledge Sources

One of the biggest differentiators between a good Customer Agent and a great one is the quality of the source.

Keep the information structured

Use clear sections like:

• Company overview
• ICPs
• Services
• Case studies
• Engagement models
• FAQs
• What we do not do
• Fallback responses

Use consistent terminology

If you say “HubSpot CRM implementation” in one place and “HubSpot onboarding” in another, the AI may treat them as separate concepts.

Write for clarity, not persuasion

Avoid:

• Marketing fluff
• Overly long paragraphs
• Vague language
• Internal shorthand

Aim for clean, direct, factual prose.

Remove anything irrelevant

Avoid uploading:

• Pricing spreadsheets
• Proposals
• Internal documents
• Detailed integration architecture
• Client data

The AI will consume anything you give it.

Use your “do not do” list

This is vital for reducing hallucination and improving reliability.

6. Good vs Bad Input Examples

Poor input

• Long, unstructured paragraphs
• Marketing slogans
• Inconsistent service names
• Outdated case studies
• Descriptions that assume context
• Internal instructions meant for staff

High quality input

• Clear headings and short paragraphs
• Factual descriptions of services
• Consistent naming conventions
• ICP focused summaries
• Explicit “we do not offer” guidelines
• Friendly, precise fallback responses

Quality inputs lead to quality AI outputs.

7. Guardrails, Fallbacks, and Handoff Best Practices

Your fallback library is one of your strongest assets.

A few examples:

• “I may not have enough context to answer that, but I can guide you towards the best next step.”
• “That area falls outside the services Growth London provides, but I can explain how we work with HubSpot CRM and CMS.”
• “Exact pricing depends on your setup. The quickest way to get a reliable estimate is to book a short intro call.”

Fallbacks protect your brand, maintain accuracy, and create a frictionless user experience.

8. Testing Framework

Test in three dimensions.

1. Breadth of questions

Include general, service-specific, ICP specific, and technical questions.

2. Edge cases

• Non ICP prospects
• Requests for unrelated services
• Complex CRM questions
• Questions designed to trigger hallucination

3. Escalation reliability

Check whether it escalates correctly for:

• Pricing
• Integrations
• Architecture
• Compliance
• Anything requiring access to their CRM

A Customer Agent should answer confidently when it can and escalate when it should not.

9. Common Mistakes to Avoid

After supporting multiple Customer Agent setups, these are the pitfalls we see most often:

• Uploading too many documents or sources - try to contain details in a master document or limit to a few key documents - this makes it easier to keep these sources updated
• Relying only on website crawling (unless your website is SUPER comprehensive and covers every key topic in enough detail)
• Inconsistent service descriptions
• Missing guardrails
• Missing fallback rules
• Outdated brand information
• Allowing low-quality website pages to be indexed
• No clear ICP summary
• No escalation path
• Vague Agent Purpose

Avoid these, and your Customer Agent will perform well from day one.

10. Analysing Performance and Continuous Improvement

Once your Customer Agent is live, review performance weekly at first, then monthly.

Look for:

• Drop-offs
• Unclear answers
• Hallucinations
• Repeated escalation triggers
• Gaps in your knowledge sources

Continuous refinement keeps the agent accurate and aligned with your brand. Get your colleagues involved, ask them to test the agent and look for gaps or areas for improvement.

11. Final Thoughts

HubSpot’s Customer Agent is a powerful tool, but only when implemented with care. The difference between a generic AI chatbot and a high-performing Customer Agent comes down to:

• High-quality inputs
• Strong guardrails
• Clear brand identity
• A reliable knowledge source
• Proper escalation logic
• Consistent review and refinement

At Growth London, we treat AI assistants the same way we treat CRM architecture. They must be structured, intentional, and aligned with how your business works.

If you would like help configuring your Customer Agent, preparing your knowledge sources, or reviewing your setup, our team would be happy to support you.

🔗 Recommended Reading

• Our friends Indira and Juan from Cat Media, who host the Dublin HubSpot User Group (HUG) ran a comprehensive workshop on setting up the Customer Agent with HubSpot's customer success team. We highly recommend checking out the workshop summary and recording if you want to dive deeper.