The art of prompting

1. Make it a real conversation

A common mistake when using ChatGPT is to think of the interaction as a one-way street - one question, one answer. But ChatGPT works best when we make it a dialog and give ChatGPT a role. Rather than making an isolated request, it's better to invite ChatGPT to ask questions itself to ensure it fully understands the requirements and delivers the best result.

Practical example:
ChatGPT should create a template for a customer approach. Instead of simply writing: "Create a customer approach for a life insurance company", we can better write: "Act as an expert in customer communication. Create a sales pitch for a life insurance company. If you need more details, feel free to ask me questions." This gives ChatGPT a role and also the opportunity to clear up any ambiguities in advance in order to provide a well-founded answer.

2. Be precise and concrete

The more specific we make the prompt, the more accurate ChatGPT's response will be. We make sure to set clear framework conditions and provide all relevant information, the so-called context. If we want a response to have a certain structure, such as output as a table or use a particular tone, we specify this directly.

Practical example:
Instead of saying, "Write an email to a customer," we say, "Write a short, upbeat email to a customer to explain new benefits of their car insurance with our company. Use confident language. The customer likes to fish in their spare time."

3. Encourage ChatGPT to self-assess and recognize hallucinations

A useful, often underestimated trick is to ask ChatGPT to evaluate your own result and make adjustments. For example, we can ask the model to analyze its own answer, rate it on a scale and then create an improved version based on this self-assessment.

Practical example:
"Please create an explanatory letter for a customer who has difficulty understanding the terms and conditions of their occupational disability insurance. Then rate the result you have produced on a scale of 1 to 10 and explain how you arrived at this rating."

A follow-up prompt could be: "Now adjust the result so that you would rate it as an 11." The 11 is outside the scale mentioned and will still lead us to better results.

Self-assessment also helps to recognize hallucinations. Hallucinations are false statements made by the model that sound correct. As a rule, the ChatGPT score is 8 to 9. If the score is 7 or lower, the result should be checked. The explanation also provides information on how good the result is. The more convincing these explanations are, the more valid the result can be classified.

4. Demand empathy and allow it to adapt

Empathy and understanding play an important role in our lives. What is practical: ChatGPT acts very empathically and solution-oriented by default. We can also explicitly ask ChatGPT to assess the level of empathy of the responses and adjust them if necessary. This ensures that even complex or sensitive topics are communicated in a way that builds trust and promotes understanding. In order to avoid the typical formulations of the language model, it is sufficient to add that the result is a human-sounding text. Capitalization further supports this point.

Practical example:
"Write a letter to a customer whose claim has been rejected. Rate the tone in terms of empathy on a scale of 1 to 10 and strengthen it if you find it too factual or cool. Please write the text as a HUMAN-SOUNDING text." As a rule, a rating of 8 is also given here as a result. Now we can also have the text adapted so that ChatGPT writes the text more objectively: "Please adapt the text you have created so that you would rate it with a 5.".

5. Context brings better results

The more context we provide, the better ChatGPT can understand what we want. For example, if we are preparing an answer to a complex question, it is helpful if we provide the specific concern, the background to the question and the desired tone.

Practical example:
"Please create a factual and understandable explanation of how companies like insurance companies can use ChatGPT to improve their customer communication. The tone should be professional and informative as I would like to use the text for an internal presentation. Please focus on the key uses such as customer service and marketing without going into too much technical detail."