Docs, brand voice
Brand Soul
The single biggest field. Three short answers that tell the AI who you are, who you serve, and how you handle things when something goes wrong. The AI inhabits this identity instead of reading a list of rules.
Why it matters
Brand voice used to mean a checklist of keywords, banned phrases, and instructions. That works until the AI hits a review it has never seen. Then it falls back to whatever the model was trained on, which is rarely your business.
Brand soul replaces the checklist with identity. You answer three questions in your own words. The AI reads those answers as its own beliefs, not as instructions about a third party. When a review comes in, it does not pattern-match a rule, it responds the way you would.
The single review that proved this matters: a 3-star post on a real restaurant told the owner to “act like a local meat house” and source better beef. The old system replied with “You’re right, and we hear you. Local beef should be the standard. We’re on it.” The AI invented a public commitment the owner never made. Brand soul stops that, because the identity tells the model up front: I run my kitchen my way. I do not let customers decide my sourcing in the comments section.
The three questions
The form is one section with three textareas. Fill them in plain English. Two to four sentences each is plenty.
1. Who you are
Tell the AI who runs this business and how it got here. First person works for a single owner (“I started this in 2015…”). Plural works for a chain or partnership (“We are a third-generation family business…”). The point is to anchor the identity, not write a press release.
2. Who you serve and what they want from you
Describe your customer in your own words. Not demographics, the relationship. What do they expect when they walk in? What do they care about? What would they never tolerate? This is what makes a roofing company sound like a roofing company and a wedding venue sound like a wedding venue, even before the AI has seen a single review.
3. How you sound when something goes wrong
This is the most underrated of the three. If a customer complained at your counter, how would you actually handle it? Apologetic? Direct? Lighthearted? Would you stand your ground on something the customer wants to change? Write the way you would actually talk, not the way a brand book would.
This question is where most owners save themselves from punching-bag replies. If you tell the AI “I hear honest feedback but I do not let customers run my kitchen,” it stops handing the kitchen over in public.
Why it works better than the old fields
| Old approach | Why it broke |
|---|---|
| Keywords list | The AI either ignored them, or stuffed them in awkwardly. Loading keywords also pushed the AI to over-promote. |
| Never-say list | Telling the AI not to say “unfortunately” usually meant it said “regrettably.” Banned phrases are a whack-a-mole problem. |
| Custom instructions | Every owner wrote rules that contradicted other rules. The AI flipped a coin. |
| Response rules | Same problem as custom instructions but with a UI for them. |
| Identity prose | One source of truth, written in the owner’s voice, that the AI inhabits instead of obeys. |
Common mistakes
- Writing it like marketing copy. “We are passionate about quality” is fluent corporate. The AI will echo that energy. Write the way you talk to a friend.
- Skipping question 3. Questions 1 and 2 give voice and audience. Question 3 gives backbone. Without it the AI defaults to apologetic.
- Naming individual staff in the prose. Use the Staff Roster for names. The brand soul is about identity, not directory.
- Trying to cover every scenario. You are not writing a playbook. You are telling the AI who you are. Trust it to handle situations on the fly once it knows that.
What it doesn’t do
Brand soul does not promise refunds, schedule callbacks, look up order numbers, or commit to changes in your operation. It tells the AI to acknowledge feedback in your voice, then redirect offline when a private conversation is the right answer. Business decisions stay yours.
See it in action
Your hamburger is from a bad paddy. Make your burger, you are a local meat house, act like it. Raised in Montrose, please make a burger so I can eat locally. Come on man, you guys are slipping.
You're right, and we hear you. Local beef should be the standard, not the exception. We're on it. Folks here deserve better than what you got, and we're gonna do better. Come back and give us another shot, we'll make it count.
Hey John, appreciate you saying something. Sourcing and quality are things I take seriously. I can't get into every detail of how we run things in a Google reply, but if you want to talk it through, come in and ask for CJ. Always willing to have that conversation in person.
Brand soul is the single highest-leverage field. Without it the AI defaults to apologizing and agreeing to operational changes it has no business agreeing to. With it, the AI inhabits the owner, acknowledges the feedback honestly, and refuses to commit on supplier or recipe decisions in public.