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How to Maximize Your Zendesk Answerbot

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Last Updated: March 2024

If you are using Zendesk for your customer support services including the knowledge base, then, you should know the ways to maximize the Zendesk answer bot to make the best out of it.

But how to do that? If you are wondering the same thing, then this article is for you. It includes all the following details about the answer bot Zendesk.

 

How The Answer Bot Of Zendesk Works

Note that the answer bot mimics human behavior as it is powered by artificial intelligence (AI). 

Actually, it tries to understand the main concept of each article published in your help center using natural language processing (NLP). Next, it takes those concepts and places them onto a map. Each concept is stored near a similar one and has a unique address.

Hence, whenever, your customer asks a question, it does its best to understand the concept and by using the map it directs them to the closest article.

Now, Let’s see the pricing of the Zendesk bot.

Zendesk Answer Bot Pricing

Remember that the usage of the answer bot is measured in resolutions per billing month.

For now, the answer bot of Zendesk is available for all plans but the resolutions depend on the plan you use.

You can learn more about answer bot resolutions from here.

Also, read How to Setup Zendesk Automated Responses.

 

Benefits Of Zendesk Answerbot

1) Always On Duty

Whether your support agents are online or offline, the answer bot will always be there to help your users with their issues.

Whenever consumers ask any questions, the bot will provide related information. In case customers cannot resolve their problems with the suggested data, then they are directed to your employees. If your staff is not available, it ensures users that their issue is registered and your staff will solve it as soon as possible.

Zendesk Answer Bot1
Image source – zendesk.com

Thus, by setting up the Zendesk answer bot you can provide 24/7 customer support

2) Reduce the Workload

Since the bot can suggest relevant articles to your user queries, it can solve common issues without any need for your customers to contact agents.

Zendesk Answer Bot 2
Image source – zendesk.com

This reduces the workload for your staff. Moreover, they can concentrate on completing other complex tasks.

3) Offer Support in More Languages

For international businesses, letting users communicate in their own language is really important. With the Zendesk answerbot, you can provide support to your customers across countries.

Recently, it introduced 11 new languages bringing the total language support to 17 including Russian, Chinese, Korean, and Japanese.

Also, readHow to Create Zendesk Triggers

 

Steps To Maximize Zendesk Answer Bot

According to Zendesk, the best way to improve your answer bot’s performance is to consider tracking the bot’s activity, the structure of existing articles, and content cues.

1) Tracking Your Answer Bot Activity

The dashboard named Article Recommendations lets you monitor your bot activity along with the effectiveness of an article.

Accessing the Article Recommendations dashboard

  1. In the Zendesk product tray, click on Explore (Zendesk Explore product icon) icon.
  2. Then, select the Zendesk Answer Bot from the displayed list of dashboards.
  3. Next, click on the Article Recommendations tab.

Note: In case your answer bot is not configured, then you will not see the Article Recommendations tab.

Understanding the reports

The Article Recommendations dashboard shows the following key performance metrics (KPIs). Moreover, you can filter the reports by answer brand, answer channel, ticket group, ticket form, article language, and time.

1) Suggestion Rate – Presents percentage of user inquiries of where the answer bot offers a suggestion and the number of answers, unsuccessful attempts, and attempts the bot made.

2) Click-through Rate – Overall percentage of suggestions clicked by the customers, the number of clicks, clicked articles, and median click time is displayed.

3) Resolution Rate – Exhibits the percentage of inquiries resolved without any agent’s involvement, including the number of resolutions, indirect resolution answers, and median resolution time.

4) Rejection Rate – Displays the percentage of suggested articles marked as unhelpful and the total number of articles marked unhelpful by the users.

Tip: To get tips for improving the suggestion rate, click-through rate, and resolution rate, click on the Improve link. For the rejection rate, click on the Decrease link.

Zendesk reports
Image source – support.zendesk.com

Learn more about the Article Recommendations dashboard report from here.

 

2) Structure Of Existing Articles

You can create and update your articles in the help center by following the below tips so that the answer bot can try and get the right article suggestions. Here are the tips on how to structure your articles.

Retain as much context as possible in the question

This is the best approach for maximizing your answer bot. 

Basically, the contextual match will be better if you keep as much similar phrasing as the original question in the article.

For example, if the question is “I cannot log in, how can I reset my password?” it should return an article “How do I reset my password?” where the content is contextually relevant to the original question.

Keep the article focused on a single problem

Keeping a long list of FAQs does not help your answer bot to suggest the right answer. Therefore, you need to ensure that each article deals with only one problem and one solution

Also, remember that the Zendesk answer bot places much emphasis on the first 75 words of an article. So, make sure that the start of the article has contextually relevant content.

 

3) Content Cues

Content cues help in improving your knowledge base health. They discover tasks and opportunities by using machine learning and Guide article usage data.

There are two types of content cues.

a) Support topics

Automatically, it spots common questions and keywords in support tickets. With this, you can understand what your customer needs and create only relevant articles.

b) Articles to review

Recognizes top-performing articles over the last 60 days so you can check that their content is relevant and up-to-date. Also, identifies underperforming articles so you can improve their content and archive non-relevant articles.

Now, check your account requirements, the steps to view Content Cues permissions, and how to access the Guide Content Cues admin page from here!

Also, read – How Does Zendesk Merge Tickets?

 

Why Zendesk Does Not Have The Best Answer Bot?

1) Answer Bot Is Not Constantly Learning

Even though the answer bot in Zendesk is powered by AI, it does not mean that it is constantly learning. In fact, it does not incorporate feedback from your customers or agents. That means the feedback does not have any effect on the answer bot’s recommendations.

2) Chance Of Recommending The Same Articles

You cannot train your answer bot to not suggest the same question and answer over and over by responding with yes to mark relevant and no to mark irrelevant articles.

Regardless of feedback from your users and agents, it will recommend the same articles over and over. This will frustrate your customers.

3) Labels Do Not Influence Answer Bot

Even if you add labels to your articles like keywords, it will not suggest your articles often.

In fact, by creating labels you generate an approved list of articles from which the answer bot can choose. But, it does not have any influence on your bot’s article recommendations.

 

Meet Saufter, The Best Zendesk Alternative!

Saufter also provides automation services but without the drawbacks that Zendesk offers. So, you do not have to worry about frustrated customers.

Actually, Saufter is helpdesk software that is designed especially for eCommerce businesses. Therefore, it has 24/7 order tracking and an automated returns center. It also delivers automated self-service along with a knowledge base, email, live chat, phone, and even SMS support services.

On top of that, it lets you hire, test, and automatically train your agents. It has easy one-click social media, eCommerce, and Slack integrations.

 

Bottom Line

First, understand how the answer bot Zendesk works. Then track your bot activities, structure your articles, and use content cues to maximize your answer bot performance.

You can also understand the benefits and drawbacks of Zendesk Answerbot from this article. Hope it helps to improve your Zendesk answer bot.

In case, you want to change your helpdesk software and scale up your customer support services, then Saufter is the one for you.

Start your 15-day trial here!

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