Reply suggestions: Equip your agents with a superbrain
Wojciech Pollok
6 min read
updated: Nov 4, 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 available in Team, Business and Enterprise pricing plans. See the full pricing for more information.
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.
The maximum number of knowledge sources you can add depends on your LiveChat subscription plan. That is:
Team plan: up to 10 files and 3 websites knowledge sources.
Business plan: up to 30 files and 10 websites knowledge sources.
Enterprise plan: up to 30 files and 10 websites knowledge sources.
The maximum number of pages within a single knowledge source is 2000 for all plans. Check the full pricing here.
To add knowledge sources
First, visit the Knowledge hub in the Automate section.
There, you’ll see an option to add websites and PDF files as your knowledge sources:
Websites
To add a website as a knowledge source, please select the Websites tab.
Select Add new website or Add website.
1
Enter the URL address of the website you want to upload as a source.
2
Choose between uploading all of the pages nested under the chosen address, or uploading just the specific page.
3
If you don’t want the website source to generate reply suggestions in chats, tick For internal use only.
4
Select More settings to proceed.
5
Select in how many days LiveChat should automatically check and update your website source.
6
Name your knowledge source.
7
Select Add website to finalize.
Your knowledge source may take a while to fully load. You can check the upload status in the Websites tab.
Once it’s done, you’ll see data like the type of the knowledge source, the author, the date of the last update, and the page count.
Select the ellipsis button to access a website preview, force the source update manually, or delete the website from knowledge sources.
To manage your website knowledge source, enter preview. There you can change the name of the source, select in how many days it gets automatically updated, change its type, and delete it.
If you want to remove specific categories or website pages from your source, select them on the list, and then select the Delete button on the pop up.
Please note that formatting and styling of your website may affect the preview, and, for example, make it look wrong. No worries, this won’t cause any interference with the Copilot and reply suggestions.
PDF files
To add a PDF file as a knowledge source, please select the PDF files tab.
Select Add new PDF file or Add PDF.
1
Drag and drop or upload a file directly from your device.
2
Choose the knowledge type for the file: Internal (used by Copilot to help your agents when asked) or keep it public (used by both Copilot and reply suggestions during chats).
3
Select Add PDF file.
Once it’s done, you’ll see the successfully uploaded file on the list with associated data like the knowledge type, author, date of the upload and the file size.
Select the ellipsis button to access a PDF preview or to delete the file from knowledge sources.
Enter preview to change the name of the source, the knowledge type or to delete it.
Please note that formatting and styling of your PDF file may affect the preview, and, for example, make it look wrong. No worries, this won’t cause any interference with the Copilot and reply suggestions.
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).
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
Check out other ways to smooth out your customers’ experience and your team’s work with AI in LiveChat.
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