Reply suggestions: Equip your agents with a superbrain
Ola Górska
5 min read
updated: Feb 15, 2024
Add knowledge sources to the LiveChat Agent App and make your reps’ job much easier.
With reply suggestions you can add your knowledge bases, product pages, and more to the LiveChat Agent app and have the AI suggest answers in chats based on a very specific set of information. This means
your public resources are immediately available inside the Agent App,
consistent messaging throughout the team,
a lower threshold for rookie agents,
easy updates - just update the source text.
Reply suggestions are currently in beta testing, available to selected subscribers.
Reply suggestions are currently in beta testing, available to selected subscribers.
The benefits
Imagine how thrilled your customers will be when your agents instantly remember every item in your catalog or any instruction from your help center. There’s never a need to check different resources, it’s all right there in the LiveChat Agent app when they need it.
One of the problems with product changes and updates is getting the information to the entire team in time and making sure that they remember to relay the new info to customers. You won’t have to manually update resources for reps with information about updates, new products, or changes in the rules and prices. Just update the knowledge source, and everyone will know what’s what.
In the world of reply suggestions, newbies and experienced agents are equally knowledgeable. They know everything about your latest products or features just as well as your top performers. This is the future of customer support, and it’s already here.
Set up the knowledge sources
Before you start using reply suggestions, you need to add the knowledge sources that will inform the suggestions. You can add your knowledge base, product pages, terms of service, or frequently asked questions, and have the suggested responses be based on these sources.
As you add the knowledge sources, you can decide if only the URLs you submit should be scanned for information, or if the sourcing should also include the URLs linked in the URL you’re adding.
The maximum number of knowledge sources you can add depends on your LiveChat subscription plan. That is:
Enterprise and Business: 10 knowledge sources
Team: 3 knowledge sources
Starter: Has no access to Reply Suggestions
The maximum number of pages shared between all knowledge sources equals 1000.
Log in to the LiveChat Agent App, and go to Settings>Reply suggestions
2
Select +New knowledge source
3
Select +Enter URL
4
Pick the option you prefer, Add this page only or Add all nested pages, and provide the URL.
5
Edit the name of your source if you want to.
6
Once the knowledge source is uploaded it will show on the list of knowledge sources in Settings>Reply suggestions.
You can currently add up to 50 knowledge sources, bearing in mind that the narrower the range, the more precise the suggestions, and the faster the response. Finding the balance between the width and specificity of the knowledge sources is key here. More on that below.
Best practices for knowledge sources
To really help your team, reply suggestions need to be swift and precise. Use your discretion when adding knowledge sources, so that the suggestions are based on very specific information pertaining to your business, and it doesn’t take forever for the data to be searched.
What are the resources your team use in their everyday work? Some good examples of knowledge sources include:
product pages,
help center or knowledge base,
pricing and terms and conditions pages,
FAQ pages.
Resist the temptation to make the AI model learn everything, as this will not only slow it down, it will also make the suggestions much less relevant. Avoid sources like social media pages or high-level, generic pages, such as Wikipedia. Generally, the lower-level, concrete the source, the better. You might even reconsider adding your website as a whole to the knowledge sources, as this may widen the search scope too much.
When you add a URL to the knowledge sources, all the links nested on that page will be searched as well, and the links included on those linked pages. This is very useful, but also very consequential, so if this is not what you want, select the Add this page only option when adding the URLs.
Be intentional about what goes into the knowledge sources. Let the answers be based on specific, relevant information. This will also help with speedy delivery, as too many sources will slow down the search. The optimal number of pages to add is between 300 and 400 (this includes the nested pages).
Reply suggestions are still in beta, so it’s not perfect yet. Try it out in the LiveChat Agent app and share your feedback with us.
How it works
Once all the knowledge sources are uploaded, your agents can use reply suggestions in chat. Here’s how it works:
1
When a customer sends over their query, select the Suggest reply button.
2
Look through the suggestion and select Use to send it in chat.
That’s it, now you can rely on your knowledge sources when answering customers’ queries. Try it out and let us know what you think. Select the beta tag to leave your feedback.
Check out other ways to smooth out your customers’ experience and your team’s work with AI in LiveChat.
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