What is Answer Bot?

Due to some technical issues, the Answer bot service is temporarily not available in the Canada region (www.salesiq.zoho.ca)

The Answer Bot is an NLP-based chatbot exclusively designed to answer questions using the SalesIQ resources. This chatbot provides 360-degree support assistance to your visitors and users. When a visitor/user asks a question in the SalesIQ's live chat widget on your website, the answer bot will take up the chat, search for an appropriate answer from your resources (articles and FAQs), and send it. If the visitor feels the answer is not solving their query, they will have the option to connect with you (operator) and the chatbot will transfer the chat, allowing you to engage personally.

An interesting fact about Answer bots is that you don't have to design or build them. They are prebuilt and you just have to set it up and enable it.

Where does Answer bot get its resources?

Resources are the "Brain of the Answer bot". The bot use the resources mentioned below to answer the questions. The stronger your resources, the more efficient the bot will be.

1. Articles
   
2. FAQs
   
3. Small Talks
   
4. Business Terms
   

Useful links

Learn how to bulk import resources

Learn how to sync desk articles in SalesIQ

Why should businesses use Answer bot?

If your business deals with routine questions on daily basis, instead of you personally handling each of these chats/queries repeatedly, you can use Answer Bot. This bot specializes in addressing common, level 1 questions, saving you time for more complex questions. 

If you want your bot to be more than just answering questions, we recommend using Zobot. With Zobot, you can build compelling chatbots to automate customer interactions. Zobot is entirely user-based, meaning it acts according to how you build and define it. It's highly customizable and can be designed based on whatever trends and business criteria you need. You can bring an Answer bot inside Zobot using the Answer bot card in the Codeless bot builder and auto_pilot action for other bot building platforms.

Note:  Currently, answer bot supports only English. 

Answer Bot Configuration

To activate the Answer bot for your brand, you need to configure four different sections:

• Profile
• Resources
• Response
• Behavior 
  
• Fallbacks

Set up the bot Profile

To set up an Answer Bot, 

1. Navigate to S ettings > Bots > Answer Bot.  Choose the brand which you have to enable the bot.
   
2. Give your Answer bot a name and description.
3. Choose the  Chat departments  for the bot. The bot will be able to use the resources such as articles, FAQs, etc., associated with the department. 

Train your bot with Resources

Resources are the " Brain of the Answer bot ." The resources will be used to train your Answer Bot. The bot will use these to answer the visitor's questions. Choose your resource, the Answer bot supports either Zoho SalesIQ's resource or Zoho Desk's knowledge base. 

1. Zoho SalesIQ Resource  - The bot uses only the SalesIQ's resource to answer the question. 

When using the Zoho SalesIQ resources, you need to have a considerable amount of resources(FAQs, Articles) to improve bot response efficiency and accuracy. We recommend having a minimum of 50 resources in each category. The more resources, the more powerful your bot will be. A strong resource base for the Answer bot will reduce your operators' workload and increase the bot's resolution rate.

1. Zoho Desk Resource -  The bot uses only the Desk's knowledge base to answer the question. 
   

Prerequisites for using Zoho Desk resource

1. Zoho Desk integration is mandatory to select the Zoho Desk resource/knowledge base for the bot. 
   
2. The bot uses the articles from the desk department that is mapped to the bot's department under integration configuration.  
3. Zia should be enabled in the Zoho Desk (Setup > General > Zia > and enable Ticket Reply Assistant).
   
4. Currently, only English language is suppored and a minimum of 30 articles are required in the Desk KB. 

1. Inside the Small talk tile, choose the Small talk package you want your bot to use. 

Note : The bot will use the default package if you do not select a custom package.  Learn how to manage Small Talk packages .

1. To enhance the Answer Bot's functionality, you can enable the "Fetch answer from resource (powered by OpenAI)" and integrate your Answer bot with OpenAI. To use this,  SalesIQ-ChatGPT integration  is mandatory.
   

When the SalesIQ-ChatGPT integration  is not enabled, this option will disabled.

1. This will make the bot to respond the visitor's questions by fetching precise answers from articles instead of sending the entire article.  
   

This option is only available in US, IN, EU, AU and JP Data Centers.

Answer bot preview without OpenAI integration (Provides the article):

Answer bot preview with OpenAI integration (Fetches the answer from the articles):

Customize the bot Response 

1. Answer found
2. Answer not found 
3. Related resource suggestion (Optional)

1. Enter the required message inside the input field under the Widget text option. To set the Answer found response message. 
2. Drag the slider to the desired count under the  Maximum article count  option to show the multiple articles in the bot's response.
3. Now, choose the follow-up actions to be shown after the answer found message is sent.
   

1. To customize the display and response text of the follow-up actions, click on the edit icon next to the  Follow-up actions  header. A pop-up will appear where you can edit the messages for each follow-up action. 
   

1. Enter the required message the message to be displayed when the bot could not find a resource related to the visitor's question.
2. Now, choose the follow-up actions to be shown after the message is sent.
   

1. Click on the toggle switch next to the Related resource suggestion header to enable the related resource suggestion. 
2. Enter the required message inside the input field under the Widget text option. 
3. Under the maximum suggestion count option, to show multiple articles in the suggestions, drag the slider to the desired maximum count.
   

Configure the bot Behavior

1. During business hours: 
   
1. Do not attend any chats  - The bot will not pick any incoming conversations during business hours.
2. Attend all incoming chats  - The bot will pick up all incoming hats during business hours. 
3. Attend chats only when operators are not available  - If the operators are unavailable, the chats will be picked by the bot. 
   
2. During non-business hours:
1. Do not attend any chats  - The bot will not pick any incoming conversations during business hours.
2. Attend all incoming chats  - The bot will pick all incoming chats during business hours. 
3. Attend chats only when operators are not available  - If the operators are unavailable, the chats will be picked by the bot. 
   

1. By default, the audience criteria rule is set to  Visitor type is All . 
2. To customize the rule, click on Manage rules, and now you can choose your desired conditions and click Save. 
   

1. Now, you can set the trigger under the following conditions:
   
1. When the visitor lands on your site and spends more than the mentioned time. 
2. When the visitor clicks on the chat widget.
3. When the visitor performs a custom action.
   

1. Configure the greeting message you want the bot to send out to your visitor when the condition set is satisfied. 
   

1. Reminder  - Based on the inactivity time set in this section, the bot can send out reminders to the visitor that the conversation is still ongoing. You can customize the reminder message and add another message to send multiple reminders at different times. 
2. Conversation timeout  - After sufficient reminders, you can end the conversations after the desired time with the chat closing message.
   

• Drag the slider to desired value to set the bot's response delay.

1. Static handoff link  - If this option is enabled, an option to connect with an operator will be available throughout the bot conversation. You can customize the text and options shown in the static link. 
2. Conversational handoff  - This option will transfer the chat to a human operator when the visitor requests via chat. You can configure the response message once the bot initiates the transfer. 
   

Manage the bot Fallback cases 

1. Operator busy : The response message and selected follow-up actions will be shown when all the operators are busy when forwarding. 
2. Operators unavailable:  The response message and selected follow-up actions will be shown when all the operators are offline when forwarding. 
   

Try out your bot

Deploy the bot 

Useful Links

Learn how to set up SalesIQ's live chat widget on your site

Learn how to personalise the chat widget