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Setup Resource Based Support Assistant - Answer Bot

What is Answer Bot?

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

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.

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 Settings > Bots > Answer Bot.  Choose the brand which you have to enable the bot.
  2. Give your Answer bot a name and description.

Configure Answer bot for multiple languages 

  1. Choose the languages you want the bot to converse in Supported languages. Currently SalesIQ supports 34 different languages.  

  1. From the chosen languages, select the primary/default language for the bot. 
  2. When the visitor uses a language which is not configured/supported, the bot will converse in primary/default language. 
Points to remember 
  1. The bot will analyse the visitor's first message language and use that language (if configured) throught the conversation. Else, the bot will use the primary/default language. 
  2. For example, if Spanish language is configured and the visitor messages, "Hola!" the bot will use Spanish the entire conversation. If Spanish is not configured, the bot will use the primary/default language.
  3. When the bot is engaged in a conversation in a specific language, only the resources associated with that language will be used. 
  4. The bot will not switch languages during the ongoing conversation. 
  5. Multi-language compatability for Business terms is not supported. 
  1. Next, 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. 

Zoho SalesIQ Resource: 
  1. The bot uses only the SalesIQ's resource to answer the question. 
  2. 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.
  3. 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.
Zoho Desk Resource:
  1. The bot uses only the Desk's knowledge base to answer the question. 
  2. Zia should be enabled in the Zoho Desk (Setup > General > Zia > and enable Ticket Reply Assistant).
  3. A minimum of 30 articles are required in the Desk Knowledge for the Answer bot to work. 
  4. Zoho Desk integration is mandatory to select the Zoho Desk resource/knowledge base for the bot. 
  5. The bot uses the articles from the desk department that is mapped to the bot's department under integration configuration.  
  6. So, ensure to map the essential desk department with SalesIQ in thSalesIQ-Desk Integration page
Important Note:
  1. Answer bot will not work as intented when selecting "Choose on Demand" in the SalesIQ-Desk department mapping. 
  2. Please note that the Zoho Desk knowledge base only supports the English language.


  1. Inside the Small talk tile, choose the Small talk package you want your bot to use. 
Note:
  1. The bot will use the default package if you do not select a custom package. 
  2. Small talks supports multi-language. 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 choose the model to integrate your Answer bot with OpenAI. 
  2. This will make the bot to respond the visitor's questions by fetching precise answers from articles instead of sending the entire article.  
Important Note:
  1. To enable this, SalesIQ-ChatGPT integration is essential 
  2. This is only available in US, IN, EU, AU and JP Data Centers.
  3. The free trial and ChatGPT Plus subscription may not perform as expected. 
  4. Ensure to have a paid ChatGPT plan that includes API usage.

Answer bot preview without OpenAI integration (answers with resources):



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


Customize the bot Response 

In this step, you can configure the bot response text and follow-up actions for the following conditions. 
  1. Answer found
  2. Answer not found 
  3. Related resource suggestion (Optional)
To configure the bot response messages for other languages, click on the language drop-down at the top right corner. 



When the bot finds the answer from the resource:
If the bot knows the answer to a visitor query, it picks the right article or FAQ and displays it. In this section, you can configure the widget text and the follow-up actions. 
When the bot is engaged in a conversation in a specific language, only the resources associated with that language will be used. For example, you have an article about the "Return policy" in English but not in French. Let's say you have configured French in the bot's profile. When the visitor asks the bot regarding the return policy in french, the "Answer not found" case will be triggered. 
  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. 


When the bot cannot find the answer from the resource:
If the bot does not know the answer to a visitor query and does not find any matching articles or FAQs, it is a no match. In this section, you can configure the widget text and the follow-up actions.
  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.


Related resource suggestion:
When the bot could not find a resource to answer the visitor directly, It will recommend closely matching resources as alternatives (if available) to the visitor.
  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

Inside this section, you can configure the different behavioral aspects of your Answer Bot.

Availability:
In this section, you can configure the following conditions for the bot to help users. 
  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. 


Audience criteria:
You can specify the criteria for the audience with whom you want the bot to assist. 
  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. 


Proactive interaction:
If you want the bot to initiate a conversation with your visitors, enable the toggle switch in the Proactive interactions section.
  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.
Note: 
  1. When the bot trigger/proactive interaction is set up, SalesIQ will analyse the website's language and checks if the respective language is configured on the bot. If it does, the bot gets triggerd in the website language. 
  2. If the website's language is not supported in the bot, the bot will trigger in the default language. 

  1. Configure the greeting message you want the bot to send out to your visitor when the condition set is satisfied. 
Idle chat handling:
You can set various actions to be performed when the chat is inactive. To enable the Idle chat handling, click on the toggle switch in the Idle chat handling section.
  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.


Bot response interval:
You can add a delay to your bots response time to make the conversation more natural and human like. 
  • Drag the slider to desired value to set the bot's response delay.


Operator handoff:
Enabling handoff lets your visitors connect to an operator in the middle of their conversation with the bot. This will allow the bot to transfer chats to an operator. There are two types of handoff actions that the bot can perform. 
  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 

Handoff failure
You can configure other follow-up actions when the bot can't transfer the chat to an operator. 
  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. 


System failure

When a system failure arises, you can show different follow-up actions and the indication message to let the visitor know there is a system failure. 

Try out your bot

Once you have set up the bot, you can test your bot in the preview window on the right-hand side. 

Deploy the bot 

After completing all the steps and testing your bot in the preview window, click on the Deploy button on the top right corner to publish. This will deploy the Answer bot on the SalesIQ's live chat widget on your website. 


Helpful?1333
Updated: 4 days ago
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12 comments

Zobot's Answer Bot is broken and does not work.  All it constantly says is "I'm sorry. I couldn't find any resource to answer you. Can you please try rephrasing your question?" 
  1. Articles are all tagged,
  2. Zia is enabled in Zoho Desk,
  3. There are hundreds of articles written in our FAQs from Zoho Desk,
  4. FAQs from Zoho Desk have been synced & published in Sales IQ as "Articles",
  5. Integration with Zoho Desk is enabled,
Zoho One's Support phone line rings out.
Zoho's SalesIQ Support via Chat is non-existent and no one answers.
I have been trying to get the right bot working on our website for 7 days now.  Zoho is uncontactable.  Our configurations are correct. When is a Developer going to investigate?  15 other people have given a thumbs down on this article so its not just me that its not working for.

When will this be available in other languages?

Maybe interesting from Zoho-support: "By default answerbot picks from English Matthias. We will enable the multilanguage support for answerbot. That will fix this issue" "We will need to enable multi language support for Answerbot. That will help you fetch the articles and faq's for the desired language." Unfortunatley they were unable to give me a release date. Hopefully will be fixed soon. 

  • 1 year ago

Is there a way to confirm that the ChatGPT integration is working? We have it configured as you have shown here, but it doesn't seem to be working. The Usage section in OpenAI doesn't show any use of our API key. 


I have also configured this exactly as instructed and the OpenAI function is not working.

Hello
Any update on multi-language support?
Every time I try to select another language it sets English back automatically, both in bot configurations and the resources.
Thank you

We configured the Answer bot, added more than 50 articles but still Bot is not working.  All it constantly says is "I'm sorry. I couldn't find any resource to answer you. Can you please try rephrasing your question?" 

I set up the bot to source desk and now it is sourcing articles that I have set up for agent view only, that are purposely not visible to the public in the KB site! WHY?

I set up the bot to source the DeskKB with ZIA and it is sourcing articles that I have set up for agent view only! Articles for agent view only, in a category that is purposely not visible to the public facing helpdesk with KB articles! You click the suggested article, the page loads and there is no article (of course). Why is it suggesting the article? There are no tags, seo or meta in the article! I went as far as UNPUBLISHING a specific article, turned the source back to SalesIQ, turned the bot off completely, cleared ALL of my own browsing data, turned the bot back on, tested with SalesIQ, OK. I turned the source back to the KB, turned the bot off and on again, with specific article still unpublished and Zia is still bringing the now completely unpublished article up as the first suggestion! On top of all that, the suggestion is not even related to the prompt! 

Zoho Answer Bot is not working in spanish, all FAQs are configured properly,  the Bot always say it can't find an answer. Trying to contact Zoho on Email , Chat, completly unresponsive; their own Zoho Answer Bot for SalesIQ is not working. I wonder if the entire Zoho Answer Bot platform is down.

we keep getting the error "I'm sorry. I couldn't find any resource to answer you. Can you please try rephrasing your question?" would appreciate some advice

Hi, 
Thank you for reaching out to us, and we apologize for the delayed response. Here are the solutions for the questions. 
  • Currently, the Answer bot supports up to 30 different languages
  • If you want the bot to work in other languages, please ensure that you've selected the language in the bot profile and have enough articles/FAQs in the respective language. For example, if you want the bot to work in Spanish, configure Spanish in the bot's profile under "Supported/Default languages," and make sure you have published articles/FAQs in Spanish as well. 
  • If the bot says, "'I'm sorry. I couldn't find any resource..." though you've more than 50 articles, please ensure that you've selected the correct department associated with your articles. (Note: Answer bot will take only published and public resources)
For more questions, please reach out to us at [suppot@zohosalesiq.com]. We will be happy to help you.