Smart Answering eGuide, Part 2: Build Your AI Knowledge Base

Congratulations! You are now officially a Smart Answering customer.

Now it’s time to build upon the demo version of the AI voice assistant you created in Part 1 to get it ready for your customers.

Your Smart Answering Dashboard

After clicking “Start Trial” on the payment page, you will land on your business’s Smart Answering Dashboard:

The Dashboard guides you with steps for building your AI assistant and provides real-time updates as you prepare for launch. These steps include:

1. Personalize Your Greeting
2. Edit Your AI’s Knowledge
3. Test Your Smart Answering AI
4. Start Receiving Calls

Note: We will review the first two steps in this part of the eGuide series. Steps 3 and 4 are covered in Part 3.

After you have built and launched your AI assistant, your Smart Answering Dashboard will provide you with performance metrics at a glance. We go into more detail on analytics in Part 5 of this eGuide series.

Step 1: Personalize Your Greeting

Smart Answering will have automatically copied over the greeting you created during your free demo.

That said, you can still edit your greeting, play it back, and explore greeting best practices by clicking on the arrow (>) next to “Personalize Your Greeting” on the Dashboard.

Once you are satisfied with your greeting, click “Save.” Doing so will automatically update the status of this task to “Complete” on the Dashboard.

Step 2: Edit Your AI’s Knowledge

Next on the checklist is to edit and add to your AI assistant’s knowledge base.

On your Smart Answering Dashboard, click the arrow (>) next to “Edit Your AI’s Knowledge.” This will take you to the AI Knowledge section of Smart Answering:

You will notice that the knowledge you provided during your free demo has been sorted into relevant labels, such as Transfers and Customer Self Service, Hours and Location, Products and Services, Policies, and FAQs.

More labels means more information for the AI to use, leading to richer, more detailed interactions.

Add New Knowledge: General

If you’re not sure which label your information falls under, simply click on the blue “+ Add Knowledge” button.

A text box will open to allow you to type new knowledge using natural language:

Enter as much detail about your business as possible and in whatever format feels most natural to you – Smart Answering excels at organizing disorganized inputs into coherent business knowledge.

You may also use the prompts highlighted in blue below the text box for ideas on additional information to add to your AI Knowledge.

After entering your knowledge in the text box, click “Preview.” The preview window will show the labels your knowledge has been sorted into.

• If you want to make changes, click “Back.”
• If you want to save the information to your AI Knowledge, click “Add.”

Add New Knowledge: By Label

You may also add new AI Knowledge by adding information directly to a specific label. To do so, click the plus (+) sign to the right of a label category.

Transfers and Customer Self-Service

For this label category, you must write out the steps your AI assistant will take in response to requests that require action, such as:

• Call Transfers: You may set up your AI assistant to transfer calls to a human to complete certain tasks. For example, you may tell your AI assistant, “If someone wants to speak to a manager, transfer them to (123) 456-7890.”
• Message Taking: Other requests may require your AI assistant to take a note and inform an employee to follow up with a customer via SMS or phone call. If so, tell your AI assistant, “If someone asks if a product is in stock, take a message and inform an employee to call the customer back.”
• Send Self-Service Link: If your business offers self-service links to complete certain requests, you may also ask your AI assistant to share these links with customers via SMS. For example, you may tell your AI assistant, “If someone asks to make a reservation, text the customer the link to our reservation webpage.”

Use the examples listed below the text box as reference when adding knowledge to this label.

Hours and Location, Products and Services, Policies

Add information under these label categories to provide your AI assistant with standard, yet important, answers about your business.

To add knowledge to these labels, simply type your information in free text.

FAQ

You likely have a list of frequently asked questions that are unique to your business.

Incorporate your FAQs in your AI Knowledge by adding question and answer pairs under the “FAQ” label.

As shown above, the “AI Enhanced” box will already be checked. This means that when a caller asks a frequently asked question, your AI assistant will use the answer you provided to generate a response that is natural, conversational, and context-aware, creating a more human-like experience for the caller.

However, for FAQ answers that must be repeated verbatim (i.e., for legal or brand reasons) you may uncheck this box. This means your AI assistant will use the exact words you provide.

Add New Knowledge: AI Knowledge Boosters

On the right-hand side of your screen, Smart Answering provides an AI Knowledge Meter to indicate the strength of your knowledge base.

To help you enhance your knowledge base – and increase the value of your AI assistant – Smart Answering provides suggested prompts for new knowledge to add.

Click on an AI Knowledge Booster to input your business’s unique answers and actions.

Your AI Assistant Is Ready for Testing

Now that you have built out your knowledge base, it’s almost time to share your AI assistant with the world. Click here for Part 3 to explore the steps and best practices for testing and launching your AI voice assistant.