After you’vecreated a conversation bot,you can begin adding answers to define its behavior.
Answers tell a conversation bot how to best respond to customer questions through the Web Widget or mobile SDK. Each answer addresses a single issue, or “intent,” and your bot can be trained to understand customer intent when phrased in different ways. You can build your own answer from scratch, or use a pre-built answer template.
This article shows you how to create an answer, configure your bot’s initial message to an end user, and edit existing answers when your communication needs to change.
This article includes the following topics:
Creating an answer for a conversation bot
Answers are added to your conversation bot from the Answers tab on the bot’s edit page. The order answers are listed does not impact how they are received by your customers.
聊天机器人可以包括2000步。These steps can be distributed among multiple answers or included in a single answer.
This section describes two ways to create an answer:
Creating your own answer
You can build your own answer from scratch, starting with an empty answer flow.
To create an answer for your conversation bot
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, clickCreate answer．
- Click Build your own answer, then clickNext．
- Enter theAnswer name．This should be a brief, clear description of the issue addressed by the answer, such as “Password reset”, “Request a refund”, or “Talk to a human”. Then clickNext．
- EnterTraining phrases．These phrases train your bot to evaluate and understand what information customers are looking for. SeeTraining your botbelow.
You can add up to 100 additional questions by clickingAdd questionat the bottom of the list.
If you have theAdvanced AI add-on, you can use pre-trained intents instead. SeeWorking with pre-trained intentsfor more information.
- ClickNext．The answer opens in the bot builder where you can build out the bot’s response.
- ClickAdd stepandcreate the first step in the answer．SeeUnderstanding answer step typesfor information on the steps you can add to an answer.
- Add additional steps to the answer as needed. You need to add at least one step to the answer.
- ClickPreviewto see how the answer will appear to your end users.
- ClickDonewhen you’re satisfied with the answer.
At this point, you’re taken back to the bot’s edit page, where you can add another answer, edit an existing one, configure the standard response, or publish the bot.
Creating an answer from a template
On the Create answer page, there are a number of templates available that can help you get started building an answer. These templates provide examples of common answer topics and construction, and can be used as a starting point for creating your own answers. Note that while each template has a complete answer framework, most will require you to add information (a business hours schedule or API details, for example) before they can be published.
To use an answer template
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, clickCreate answer．
- Click the answer template you want to view or use as the starting point for your answer.
- ClickNext．The answer opens in the bot builder.
- Update the answeras needed. We recommend checking each step in the answer to make sure it is complete and has been personalized to suit your business tone.
- ClickDone将它添加到你的答案列表。如果你只是竞争wing the answer structure without making any changes, click your browser'sBackbutton to return to the Create answer page.
Updating the standard responses
The Standard responses tab has a number of expandable sections where you can define some default bot responses.
These responses can be activated or deactivated as needed and, in some cases, customized.
These settings are automatically saved, but will not be presented to customers until you publish or re-publish the bot.
The page includes the following response options:
- Start of the conversation, the bot’s initial response when a messaging conversation is started.
- If the bot can't understand a question, the bot’s default response when no answer matches a customer’s comment.
- If a question matches more than one intent．
- If there's no relevant answer．
Start of the conversation
When your customers first open a messaging conversation in the Web Widget or your mobile app, they’re met with aninitial welcome message．There are two types of welcome messages:
This section is required, and must be configured before you can publish your bot.
Creating a single answer welcome message
By default, you’re prompted to select an existing answer as the initial message. When the end user first interacts with the bot, the selected answer is sent and does not include a custom message. This option can be used to immediately transfer your customer to an agent, for example.
To use an existing answer as your starting answer
- On theStandard responsestab, expand theStart of the conversationsection.
- Make sure theRespond with a messageoption is deselected.
- Use theStarting answerdropdown to select the answer that will welcome your customers when they initiate a conversation.
Creating a custom welcome message
You can also choose to write your own welcome message, followed by one or more of your previously created answers presented to your customers asoptions．
To configure a custom welcome message
- On theStandard responsestab, expand theStart of the conversationsection.
- Make sure theRespond with a messageoption is selected.
- Enter your initial message or leave the default message.
- Use theStarting answersdropdown to select up to 10 answers to present to customers as preconfigured options.
If the bot can't understand a question
你可以建立一个奥特曼atic response to an end user, asking for more information. This response is triggered any time during a conversation if the bot does not understand the end user's comment.
This response is optional, and can be activated or deactivated as needed.
To request clarification
- On theStandard responsestab, expand theIf the bot can't understand a questionsection.
- SelectAsk customer to provide more info or rephrase question．
- Enter your message, or use the default message provided.
If a question matches more than one intent
After the initial customizable message, the matching intents will be presented to the end user as preconfigured options.
To suggest intents
- On theStandard responsestab, expand theIf a question matches more than one intentsection.
- SelectSuggest matching intents．
- Enter your message or use the default message provided.
If there's no relevant answer
This response, also known as the fallback response, is triggered when:
- There is no answer that matches the end user's question or comment.
- An intent selected by the end user, as part of theIf a question answers more than one intentresponse, does not have an associated answer.
This section is required, and must be configured before you can publish your bot.
To configure the fallback response
- On theStandard responsestab, expand theIf the bot can't understand a questionsection.
- Choose whether you want toRecommend help center articlesbefore the fallback message.Note:This option only appears if you have an active, publicly available help center.
- Enter an initial message, the information offered by the bot if no help center articles are found, or if you do not have an active help center. By default, the bot is configured to sayI didn't get that. Try rephrasing your question．
- Use theAnswersdrop-down to select up to 10 of your already-created answers to present to the customer.This step is optional．
Training your conversation bot
You can teach the bot how to interpret questions asked by the customer during the messaging conversation so they can match and deliver the most relevant answer for a particular question.
When you create or open an answer in the bot builder, you'll see the Configuration panel as usual, but now it will contain two sections:
- Name, a short description of the answer.
- Training phrases, different ways the customer may phrase the question.
In the Training phrases section, you can add up to 100 variations of the question a customer might ask that should result in that answer being offered by the bot.
To create good training questions, keep the following points in mind:
- Questions don’t need toexactlymatch what the customer types. For example, a customer could spell something wrong, or phrase it a little differently and still get a match.
- Avoid the use of generic phrases like “I want to” or "How do I", which can dilute the question's core meaning. For example, instead of using "I want to get a refund", use “Get a refund."
- Do make sure you use necessary basic details. For instance, instead of "Renew", say "Renew membership."
- Do not use unnecessary words, such as "Hi", in a question.
You donotneed to add training phrases in multiple languages.
Updating an existing answer
You may find you need to edit an existing answer in the following ways:
Updating the name or training phrases
You can edit an answer’s name, or add, remove, or edit training phrases.
To update an answer’s name
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, hover over the answer you want to change and selectEdit．
- In the bot builder’s configuration panel, update the answer’sName．
- ClickDone．
To update an answer’s training phrases
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, hover over the answer you want to update and selectEdit．
- In the bot builder’s configuration panel, update the training phrases as needed.
- To add a phrase, clickAdd phraseat the bottom of the list and enter the new one.
- To remove a phrase, click the trash can icon next to it.
- To edit a phrase, update the text in the question’s text entry box.
- ClickDone．
Editing a step in an answer
You can change an answer by editing the configuration details of an existing step. You cannot edit a step's type. For more information on the steps below, seeUnderstanding bot step types．
To edit a step in an answer
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, click the answer you want to edit.
- Click the step you want to edit. Its details appear in the Configuration panel.
- Edit the elements you want to change.
- ClickDonewhen you've finished making your changes.
Copying and pasting steps in an answer
You can copy a step, or a step and its subsequent steps, and use it elsewhere within the same answer. Steps cannot be copied from one answer and added to another.
Copied steps can only be pasted at the end of a branch in the answer, and that branch cannot currently end with a Transfer to agent step.
To copy a step (or multiple steps) and paste it elsewhere in an answer
- Click the step you want to copy.
- At the top of the step details in the Configuration panel, click theOptionsicon (
) to open the Options menu:
- Select your option:
- SelectCopy this stepto copy only the selected step
- SelectCopy this and following stepsto copy the selected step and all subsequent steps
- Click theAdd newicon (
) at the end of the branch, or theAdd a stepicon () after an options step. - Click theOptionsicon () again, and selectPaste step:
The step is added to the answer's flow.
- Continue editing the answer as needed and clickPublishwhen your edits are complete.
Inserting new steps to an answer
In addition to copying and pasting steps into an answer, you can also insert a step between two existing steps in an answer.
When you add a branching step, such as aPresent optionsorAdd business hours conditionsstep, the subsequent, pre-existing steps will be included under the new step's initial branch.
- Present options: Existing steps are included underOption 1．
- Add business hours conditions: Existing steps are included under theWhen openbranch.
TheTransfer to agentstep type cannot be added to an answer before another step. It can only be included as the final step in an answer.
To add a step into an answer
- Hover over the line between two steps and click theAdd newicon () .
- In the Configuration panel, select the message type you want to insert into the answer, and configure the step as needed.
- Repeat as needed, thenPublishyour updated answer.
Removing steps from an answer
Deleting a step removes all subsequent steps from the answer. If you want to delete a step but retain the subsequent steps, you can copy and paste the subsequent steps later in the answer.
To delete a step in an answer
- On the Answers tab of the bot’s edit page, hover over the answer you want to update and selectEdit．
- At the top of the Configuration panel, click theOptionsicon ().
- Select删除这一步．If there are subsequent steps, click删除stepsin the warning box.
- ClickDonewhen you've finished making your changes.
Deleting and deactivating answers
If an answer is no longer relevant or necessary, you have two options for removing it from your bot:
Deleting, which permanently removes the answer from the Answers list.
安静下来, which removes the answer from the bot, but retains it for future use.
To delete or deactivate an answer
- On the bot’s Answers tab, hover your cursor over the answer you want to remove.
- Click the Row actions icon (
) and select your action:删除orMake inactive． - Confirm your selection.
- The answer is updated according to the selected action:
- 删除removes the answer from the answer list.
- Make inactivechanges the answer’s status to Inactive. You can reactivate the answer from the Row actions icon by selectingMake active．
Publishing answers
Before your new or edited answers are available to your customers, you must publish the bot they’re attached to. SeePublishing a botfor information and instructions.
Answers are not published individually. When you publish the bot, all answers in the Ready to publish state are published as well.Deleting or deactivating an answer is immediate. You do not need to republish the bot.
49 Comments
Hello!
I want to ask about the feedback flow question : "Was this helpful?" which previously available in the flow builder is now missing.
How can I enable the feedback flow again in the flow builder?
Thanks!
Hey Jonathan. We are making changes to the feedback step, making it configurable. This will be implemented in 2 phases:
You can find more information on what's changed in thisHelp Centre article
I don't see the option to configure intents anywhere on my existing bot/ flow or if I create a new one. I see the note that it is not available for previous bots but I also don't see the option if I create a new bot.
As discussed on your submitted ticket, and based on the launch date and duration on this article, please wait for two weeks if it's still not available on your account. Don't hesitate tocontact us directlyif the same issue persisted after two weeks.
Hello, I would like to know how to end a flow, before I had at the end of each branch a "Was this helpful?"but now it doesn't show up and I can't publish my bot.thanks
It seems that every blank step now will automatically have that option.
Can you try it on your end, if in case you are still not able to save it, feel free tocontact our support directly．
Hi Luiz,
The feedback flow has been removed as we will be replacing this with a configurable feedback step in the near future. If you wish to replicate this step, you can manually add aPresent options step typeand configure which options are available to them depending on their feedback.
You can find more information on this and what else has changed in thisHelp Centre article
Unfortunately the new bot building experience is lacking substantial functionality to work with multiple languages.
Even when automatic translations are enabled, Greeting messages are not translated, intent options are not translated either.
This causes a really inconsistent experience for multi-lingual customers.
HiShayan Moussawi
Greetings messages should be translated if you have auto-translation enabled. What you're describing there sounds like there could be a bug. Please raise a ticket with our Advocate team so we can investigate and get that resolved.
Thanks
Hello Team Zendesk.
It would be very, very good if you consider allowing rich text in the Message step, as requested by a colleague in the community (https://support.zendesk.com/hc/en-us/community/posts/4672750330778-Request-for-Enrich-text-on-chat-bot-messages-like-bold-underline-highlight-or-the-possibility-of-including-images-hyperlinks-videos-etc-for-all-suites?page=1#community_comment_4685841766810 )
Today it is not possible to bold or underline words, or put a hyperlink instead of a literal link.
It would be a great improvement that today the competition has it, but Zendezk does not.
Cheers!
Daniel.
One thing that's a little unclear is if the phrase used for intent is purely used for classification only or if it's also recognised by the bot when an end-user searches.
e.g. In the example you give where you'd use "Request a refund" as the intent, would you also need the same phrase to be included in the "Other ways to ask" list?
Deseo cambiar el orden de la respuesta.No hay manera hay un criterio que desconozco.Quisiéramos este orden:
No hay manera de colocar el orden de aparición que uno desea. Cual es el criterio? Puedes agregar la funcionalidad para poder ordenar las respuestas.
The phrase used for the intent is not only for classification but it's also being used by the bot for the actual search.
Hope this helps!
hi team.. I'm very happy with this answer bot update because it can handle more complex questions when the user writes a question even though it depends on the question we set in each intent..
but I'm a bit confused by the response from the answer bot when the question written by the user is not understood by the answer bot because I found 3 different answers when I tried it..
1. the answer from the bot will display the answer "I didn't get that. Try rephrasing your question or start over."
2. the bot will enter one of the question flows (strange)
3. the bot will try to contact the agent
why bots can display 3 different answers when a user writes something the bot doesn't understand?
I really do like the new bot building experience. However the bot still needs to improve with recognizing intent, especially for longer messages.
It seems that when the bot recognizes a match for two different intent options, the bot falls back to the article recommendation flow because it seems to have trouble deciding which intent is the better match.
In my opinion there are two potential ways to solve this:
1. Give customers the option between deciding which intent option to pick when there’s a conflict with a standard „differentiation flow“.
2. Give Admins the option to configure ‚hard‘ words. Which should always take priority.
For example if „XML“ is defined as a ‚hard word‘ for a certain intent. And the customer mentions this word in his message without any other hard words (but with words that could apply to different intents) the intent with the ‚hard word‘ being mentioned should take priority.
Just allowing admins more control over how to train the bot would help a great deal
I wonder how auto-translate works for answers.
The above article mentioned "You donotneed to add training phrases in multiple languages." So even if customers reach out using traditional Chinese, will the bot still be able to translate it and provide "answers" accordingly? Thanks
Hi! I got curious if is there a limit of characters for theDisplayed messageand for anoptionin a step? I believe options ideally should be short. What are those limits?
Thanks!
The limit is 128 characters.
Hi Ashley, yes if automatic translations is enabled, the bot should still be able to provide answers when a user is speaking a language other than the language the flow is built in, provided it is one of theAnswer Bot supported languages．
HiDane
Is it for both, displayed messages and options? Thanks!
I have updated the information previously provided and tested it directly.
For the message it is 4095 characters. While for the option, it is 60 characters. The 128 that I have previously provided was for the text field when transferring to agents.
Hello, my apologies if this has been addressed. Just recently published our chat bot for the first time with separate intents created. We have an issue where it is triggering properly to live chat if we type "Agent" as set up but "agent" with the lower case sensitivity, the bot does not seem to recognize and trigger properly. It keeps starting from the chat tree on an unrelated issue.
I have even created two separate intents/ answers, one for "Agent" and one for "agent" but the "agent" one never seems to work.
Is there a resolution for this?
你可以尝试使用“代理”或其他words like "Live person" etc. on theOther Ways to Asksection of the intent.
Hi ZD Team,
Sorry if I had missed out, is there any reporting tool in Explore to measure the performance of this function in specific?
So far, the default "Zendesk Answer Bot" report is more or less able track the Flow Builder Bot performance, so is there any reporting tools to track "Answer for a Bot" function?
Please advice, TQ
Hi, is there an upload feature for ChatBot?
Hi,
I am using the chatbot for instagram. But he has many problem with the chatting/blablabla.
So the chatbot answers on "Story Markings" always with "I didn't get that. Try rephrasing your question or start over." - This is so confusing for the people.
Is it possible to configurate the "I didn't get that. Try rephrasing your question or start over."?
So when the chatbot can not answer he should not write a message, just create a ticket?
Is this possible? Or can we change the "I didn't get that. Try rephrasing your question or start over." message and personalize it?
We would love to use the chatbot for "real cases" - but we do not confuse the people...
Best regards,
Tatjana
HeyMatthewL,
Currently the reporting tools available for Flow builder bot is in here:Analyzing your Flow Builder Activity．Our Developers are already aware of the demand for a more custom way of reporting with Flow Builder specifically the bot answers. We don't have an estimated date when it will be launch but it will be available soon! I strongly suggest following,Zendesk Updates, to get a real-time update on new features we are launching. Thanks!
Hola, es posible configurar una respuesta "regresar al inicio" en chatbot y poder regresar al "incio" nuevamente ?
¡Hola Iván, muchas gracias por tu pregunta!
Desafortunadamente, me temo que de momento no es posible agregar un botón o respuesta de "regresar al inicio". Pero esta funcionalidad se puede encontrar como una de las respuestas automáticas, cuando el Bot no comprende completamente lo que ha escrito el usuario. Como puede ver en este artículo:Comprender los comportamientos automatizados de la respuesta del bot.
Además a esto, puedo recomendarle agregar su apoyo al siguiente Feedback Post en nuestra Comunidad:Add "Back" step in "Flow Builder"．Puede explicar su escenario y mientras más tracción tenga este post, más oportunidades existe de que nuestro equipo de Desarrollo decida implementarlo en el futuro.
¡Espero que esto haya sido de ayuda!
Hi as a feedback, currently it is impossible to order initials greetings:
Pleasesign into leave a comment.