Understanding where you can use Answer Bot

Answer Bot functionality is available in a number of Zendesk products and integrations. This article is a guide to all the ways you can use Answer Bot, and where to find more information on adding it to your toolbox.

Answer Bot in the Knowledge Capture app and Slack integration is included free of charge. An add-on subscription is required to use Answer Bot with the other features discussed in this article.

Answer Bot in Support emails

The most basic Answer Bot functionality is the automated email response. When an end user submits a support request via email, they receive an auto-response acknowledging their request. When Answer Bot is enabled, that email includes a list of articles from your Help Center that can help the requester solve their own issue:

If a suggested article answers their question, the end user can close their support request; if no article addresses the problem, the support request remains in the ticket queue to be answered by an agent.

Answer Bot in web forms

You can add Answer Bot to your web-based ticket forms as well. When enabled, if an end user submits a support request through your Help Center’s submission form, a pop-up modal offers them suggestions for articles that they may find useful:

As with the emailed suggestions, if any article in the modal answers the end user’s question, they can close the support request with no input from an agent; if it doesn’t, their request remains in the ticket queue.

Answer Bot in the Knowledge Capture app

If you’re on Guide Professional or Enterprise, and using the Knowledge Capture app, by default you have some internal Answer Bot functionality, without needing a separate Answer Bot subscription.

There are two features in the Knowledge Capture app that give your agents more access to Answer Bot functionality:

• Answer bot for agents. When a requester adds a comment to a ticket, Answer Bot looks for relevant articles, and suggests them within the app, allowing agents to view them. Agents can then decide to insert them into their response to the requester, or use the linked articles to help them craft their reply.
• Rapid Resolve. When an agent sends a link to an end user directly from the Knowledge Capture app (using Answer Bot for agents), end users can then self-solve their tickets directly from the article they’re viewing.

You can disable the self-solving option in the Knowledge Capture app, if needed. This prevents end users from closing their own requests based on articles offered by an agent, or by Answer Bot.

Answer Bot for Slack

The Answer Bot for Slack is a free feature enabled in the Slack for Zendesk Support integration if you are on the Guide Enterprise or Professional plan.

This feature allows Answer Bot to “listen in” on questions posed in any Slack channel configured to use the Support integration, and offer relevant article suggestions:

Users can indicate whether the offered article is useful to them by clicking the Yes or No buttons and, if more than one article is found, they can click the More suggestions button to view additional articles.

If their question is not answered by any of the articles offered, they can submit a Support ticket:

Answer Bot in the Web Widget

If you have the Web Widget installed on your Help Center or web site, your customers can engage with Answer Bot whenever they need help across your site, in a conversational way.

Escalation options to a human agent can always be made available, such as requesting a callback, live chat or leaving a message.

Answer Bot in the SDK

Answer Bot can be a part of your mobile support offering. Our mobile SDKs make it easy to integrate into any mobile app, answering customer questions in-context without them ever having to leave the app or disrupt their experience. Users can mark the articles as “solving” their issues, or indicate they still need help - and escalate their issue to a Support ticket.

Answer Bot APIs

The Answer Bot API enables businesses to extend AI-powered self-service help to any channel. Developers can build their own own self-service automation experiences wherever they’d like. When implemented correctly users can quickly and easily mark their questions as resolved / not-resolved giving you more data for reporting, and improving the Answer Bot model over time.