When a customer starts a discussion on your site, Tender looks through your knowledge base for articles about the same thing and offers them straight away. Often the answer is already written, and the customer doesn't have to wait for you.
What the customer sees
Right after posting, the customer sees Does one of our articles solve your problem? with the suggested articles. Each one opens in place with Continue reading….
- Yes! My issue was resolved (or This article resolved my issue under one article) closes the discussion and notes which article answered it. The closed discussion then shows "This discussion was closed with these articles".
- No, Continue to my discussion takes them to their discussion, which stays open for your team.
If nothing matches, the customer goes straight to their discussion. Discussions you start from the dashboard skip this step, and it only happens when your knowledge base is on.
Customers are only offered articles they're allowed to read: published ones, and articles in Beta or Important sections only for those users (see User Class-Important & Beta).
What your team sees
On a discussion's page, support staff get a link such as 2 suggested articles below the first message. Click it to see the articles Tender found, which helps you answer with a link instead of writing it all again. To put an article into your reply, use Add KB in the reply form (see Attaching knowledge base articles to replies).
Help Tender find the right article
Tender compares the discussion's title and first message with each article's title, keywords and text.
- Keywords matter most. Each article has a Keywords field in the editor (separate words with spaces). Add the words your customers actually use, including the ones that aren't in the article: product nicknames, error messages, common misspellings, "invoice" as well as "receipt".
- Say what the article is about in its title. A short title made of the words people search for works best.
- One topic per article. An article that answers one question is easier to match than a long page that covers ten.
The same keywords also help your knowledge base search, on your site and in the dashboard.
Searching your knowledge base from your own app
To search your articles from your own application or website, use the API's article search (faqs/search?query=...) from your server.