There are a number of non-configurable bot behaviors that are part of your bot’s functionality. These are triggered by the customer entering a free-text message into the widget or mobile SDK. The bot then assesses the content of the text entry and responds with one of the following behaviors:
These responses remain active in customized bots.
These automated messages appear in your selected bot language. See Managing languages for a bot.
Conversational shortcuts
A conversational shortcut uses AI to assess any free-text message entered into the conversation by a customer and automatically jumps to the relevant part of an answer.
Article suggestions
Article suggestions are only available if you have a publicly available help center. If no help center is available, the article suggestion behavior will not be triggered, and a fallback flow is triggered instead.
Fallback flow
The fallback flow is triggered when none of the abovementioned behaviors help the customer self-solve their support issue. The bot gives them the option to rephrase their question, or offers up to six possible answers for them to choose from.
You can configure the fallback flow. See Building a bot using answers: Fallback response.
36 Comments
I'd like to edit the fallback flow to allow transfer directly to an agent if the customer indicates "no, I still need help". Is this possible?
We're having the exact same issue as Anton above, our customers hit a dead end and have no additional messages or options. They will not all know that they can type "talk to a human" at any time. with messaging disabled this works fine with answer bot on the classic widget.
We need either:
I would like to edit the language used in fallback and feedback flow. Is there a way, I can change the language to a non supported one.
I am having the same issue as @Anton Verhelst — after the articles are suggested, there's no way for the user to mark it as unhelpful and ask to connect to agent.
As mentioned by Aashley Malsbury, we also really need to customize the fallback flow, otherwise we just cannot use the bot as it is not user friendly.
Dane, since this is an intended feature, I'd like to make it clear there is a significant use case for my request, particularly customers who are having trouble navigating answer bot in the chat widget, so please make this a feature request.
Anne Ronalter I know this is an option in the flow builder, but I'm talking about the Fallback option.
When that is selected and Answer bot suggests answers, no follow-up is shown.
It says "Here are some suggestions that may be helpful" Follow by articles and then nothing.
Zendesk really needs the article recommendations to ask for feedback after recommending the articles. Having it automatically ask the "Was this helpful?" step and give the option for "Yes, my question is answered" vs "No, I still need help" would be both more helpful for our customers and also helpful for reporting purposes. This should be a standard feature and it should be included in the data in the Explore report for article recommendations.
The main issue here is that customers do not understand or know that they can still ask for help after getting the article recommendations since they're not being prompted. They just think the bot is "hanging up" on them and then they think they can't get any help, which is a pretty serious issue for something that is supposed to be more helpful to customers. Because of this, we've had to turn off Article Recommendations until there's a fix on this.
How can I disable the custom response box of zendesk's chatbot widget?
Instead of the customer writing a custom response in the chatbot, we want to induce the customer to select one of the alternatives displayed on the chatbot.
Whats the ETA of asking if an article recommendation was helpful? Such a poor customer experience the way it is set up now. This is low hanging fruit the Zendesk team should easily recognize and fix.
As per KROB's reply on July 7, 2023, when using the "Recommend help center articles" option, sure, it will present some articles to the user if it matches any, but then nothing else - there should be an option to ask the user if the articles helped, or provide a button to another "answer" so it can then step in to an answer bot flow.
So basically, how we present the user with the next step after it has recommended the matched help center articles?
Hi Karla McCartney-Brown!
At the moment it's not possible yet to be able to duplicate & copy a flow. A feature request has already been created for it which you can check out: Ability to copy and backup bot flows and steps.
You can up-vote that original post and add your detailed use-case to the conversation. Threads with a high level of engagement ultimately get flagged for product managers to review when they go through roadmap planning.
Hi! Is there a way to duplicate a workflow and copy this into a new bot automation?
Thank you for being active in our Help Center.
@Aashley
This is definitely a good feature to have. However, it is by design to have the "Start Over" button in order to give an opportunity for the customer to search for other related resource and for the Answer Bot itself to filter out basic customer concerns. Once the "Start Over" option has been chosen, the option to "Talk to Human" will be available again.
@Erkin
Answer bot can only be used in languages specified in Languages supported in Answer Bot.
Modifying the Answer Bot avatar and name can be done by the use of Zendesk Answer Bot API.
Have a great day guys!
Cheers,
Dane
Zendesk | Customer Advocate
when a customer manually types a question, Answer bot will suggest articles and should ask if it was helpful. It does not do that anymore. Is that a bug or a setting?
Hey,
The feedback flow pops up automatically even though the customer is not feeding any input in the chatbot. I am attaching a screenshot for reference. I want the feedback to pop up only after any article recommendation or any question asked by the customer in the answer bot widget.
I definitely agree with everyone regarding the design of the Article Suggestions. It could be improved by at least having the previous option "Was this helpful?" or anything similar. Our product managers are already aware of this. Rest assured, we are doing our best to cope up with your feedbacks.
Article Suggestions is triggered by free-text being entered by end-users. Hence, if they noticed that there's no relevant information provided on the text they have entered, their primary tendency is to enter other words/phrases again. If no matches are present it will then trigger the Fallback where you can designate what answers will presented to your end-users.
Hello Dane do you have a deadline for the issue Anton Verhelst addressed?
What messaging channels can a bot be connected to? Can you use a bot to respond to messages from social channels such as Facebook Messenger or Instagram DMs?
The feedback flow is now configurable.
You can create a new feedback step by adding an "Ask if question resolved" step type.
Jason Kral have you had a chance to see these tips?
The above screenshot is at 1:15 into the video. Following these tips may help improve the Recommended articles. Also, you may want to consider adding labels to the articles.
About the Answers, how many do you have set up in your instance? How many training phrases have you set up for each Answer?
I agree that having another step option for Searching Guide Articles would be a great addition.
Thank you for pointing that one out. Sorry, I missed it. Upon checking, renaming Answer bot is not available. However, we are already working for a similar feature on which the Answer Bot name will adapt the name of your brand. We don't have an actual date yet for its launch. Please always keep an eye for it by checking our Zendesk updates page.
Hello Paul, thank you for your question!
As of now, this is not possible just yet. But we have plans of adding the Bot functionalities to social channels, as you mentioned. In fact, we have an Early Access Program (EAP) that you can be a part of by reviewing this article here: Flow Builder support for social messaging (Early Access Program).
We would love your feedback!
Thanks Dane! I do believe that's only for the classic widget, right?
We're using Messaging, which that endpoint doesn't seem to cover.
My Answer Bot in the new Messaging Web Widget is not suggesting articles at all! My Help Center is public, I have left my "Starting answers" from my Standard responses blank, and I have checked "Greeting message" and "Recommend help centre articles".
Do I have to configure something in "Article Recommendations" under Bots and automation?
Am I able to edit the Answer Bot name? I can't seem to find a way to edit that on Messaging.
Hi Shaun Luong,
I see you have contacted us on a separate ticket regarding Answer Bot. Please expect a response from me and let's continue to work together from there. Thanks!
Como cambio la anchura del chat box?
As Aashley Malsbury mentioned, customers have a really hard time navigating the chatbot, we had to disabled it due to an avalanche of complaints and a lot of lost customers frustrated with our new chat experience.
Chat experience is vital for us since it's a crucial sales channel. Is there any place I can make a formal feature request to make possible the following:
We were really excited with messaging and its chatbot and made the effort to migrate from chat SDK to Messaging but we were surprised and disappointed with the poor performance and all the negative consequences it brought.
Best,
Nelson
Is it possible to suggest KB articles while our helpcenter itself is locked to authorized users only?
seems a bit silly that i have to open up our helpcenter to the public internet for this to work...
Please add a new step option for "Search Guide Articles" which triggers a full search against Guide.
The bot often gets confused if it can't find an Answer with a matching search term, and when "Recommend help center articles" is checked, it will often show articles which are completely irrelevant and off topic.
This would allow us to add the step for "ask if question resolved" after Help Center article searches,
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