Tutorial / Using the Knowledge Base

1. What the Knowledge Base does
2. Adding a new answer
3. Setting keyword weightings
4. Suggesting a response to a question
5. Using pending answers
6. Understanding your statistics

SupportByEmail.com lets you build a knowledge base of popular questions and answers that you may receive by email. Each answer is assigned one or more keywords, ranked according to their relevance to the question.

For example, if you ran a British mail order shop and customers frequently ask you whether or not you ship to the United States you might want to use the following keywords for that question:

• Shipping
• United States
• USA
• Overseas

To add an answer to your knowledge base, click the Manage Answers button in the menu on the left. If you already have answers in the knowledge base these will be displayed in a list from which you can edit the answer text and keywords. Click Add new answer to create a new knowledge base entry.

Enter a title, which is usually a general version of the question that this text will answer. For our shipping example, the title could be "Do you ship to the United States?". The title will be shown to you when the system presents a list of possible responses, so make it descriptive enough to help you choose the correct answer quickly.

In the main text box, enter the full text of the answer that you would give to the customer. Remember that SupportByEmail.com always gives you the opportunity to amend an answer before it is sent, so you can create template answers that require details to be filled in before sending. For the shipping question, you may just want a simple response, such as:

Yes, we ship to most countries world wide including the United States.

We do ship to (INSERT COUNTRY), though there is a surcharge of 
(SURCHARGE AMOUNT) per order, to cover air mail costs.

These are short examples, but there is no limit to the length of an answer. For instance you could set up your knowledge base to include an answer that contained a company profile in response to the question "Can you tell me more about your company?".

An important feature of SupportByEmail.com is the way you can assign weights to each keyword. The way you assign weights can affect the answers that are found in response to different questions.

To assign a keyword to an answer, click the keywords link next to the appropriate question in the answers list. The list will appear immediately after adding a new answer, or whenever you click the Manage answers link in the left hand menu. Enter a keyword in the box and select a weight value, then click Add to add that keyword.

Note that single word keyword entries are more effective than multiple words. If you want to create an answer to a question about credit card payment, you may want to use credit card as a keyword. In fact if you use credit and card as two keywords, this answer will still be suggested for a question containing credit card as if it were a single keyword. An email containing the phrase credit or debit card would match this answer using two separate keywords, but not if credit card was a single keyword entry.

The weight value is chosen on a percentage scale, with 100% representing the highest relevance. For the credit card question we may chose to set both credit and card at 80% relevance, and add the keyword payment with a lower score such as 40%. There are no fixed rules for how keywords and weights should be assigned, but generally between three and eight keywords per question is effective. As you get used to using the knowledge base you will get a feel for what weightings work for your system - SupportByEmail.com can be used instantly but requires a little thought to optimise the results it gives.

Remember that Lightwood Consultancy Ltd offer a custom service to help create your ideal knowledge base. A consultant will analyse your most common questions with you and look at some sample emails to create an optimum set of keywords and weightings. Please contact us for more information about this service.

If you make a mistake or just wish to delete a keyword from an answer in the knowledge base, there is a delete link next to each keyword. Just click the link to instantly delete that keyword.

When replying to a question, you can use the Suggest responses link below the To:, From: and Subject fields to search for suitable responses in the knowledge base. A new popup window appears containing the best answers.

Each question is shown along with a score indicating its relevance to the question. The actual value of the score is not as important as the position of the answer in the list - a score of 25% may still be the one you are looking for, but because your customer's question could contain many other words than the keywords that match, the score will rarely be 100%.

If no matching responses are found, you are able to edit the keyword list in the field at the top of the screen to include more search terms for the knowledge base to look for. If you find you are doing this a lot, you should consider revising the keywords you have used for a question that produces no matching answers.

To view the full text of an answer, click the view link alongside the appropriate question title. If the answer is not the correct one you can return to the matching answers list by clicking Back to answers list, or to use the answer in your email reply click Use answer in reply. You can edit a response before using it in a reply, or just edit the message text once you have found an answer in the knowledge base.

Remember, there is a fully functional demo system available if you want to see how a working knowledge base deals with questions. Click the Demo link in the left hand menu now to access this, and you can submit any questions you like to the demo system by sending email to demo@supportbyemail.com.

You can use SupportByEmail.com to send and receive emails without using the knowledge base at all, though of course without adding answers and keywords you will not fully benefit from the time-saving capabilities of the system.

The Pending answers facility allows you to build up a knowledge base over time, so that you can start using SupportByEmail.com right away for everyday email tasks and add new questions and answers to the knowledge base as you come across them.

When you reply to a message, there is a checkbox in the bottom left of the email form marked Add to system. If you think the reply you are sending will be useful in future, tick the box. This will create a Pending answer record, for you to review at any time in the future and can become a full answer in the knowledge base very easily.

When you want to review your pending answers, click Pending answers from the menu on the left. A list will appear showing the first few lines of each answer that is waiting to be reviewed. If you decide an answer is no longer any use, simply click del next to it to remove it from the list.

To turn a pending answer into a fully fledge answer in the knowledge base, click the add/edit link. Instantly a new answer record is inserted, but no keywords are attached at this stage so it won't be found yet when you try to suggest a response. The question title will also be prefixed with NEW: to indicate that it is not yet a complete answer. After clicking add/edit you will be taken to the edit answer page, where you can modify the question title and answer text. Then press Save answer to save the changes.

Add keywords and weight values as before by pressing the keywords link alongside the newly added question. When you have added all the keywords this question will start to be found when you click Suggest responses.

SupportByEmail.com generates some useful summary statistics so that you can track how well the knowledge base is working for you. To view your statistics page, click the View statistics button in the menu on the left.

In the top right of the page is a dropdown that says Current period. Once you have activated your account, this dropdown will allow you to select a billing period to view the stats for. The figures underneath show:

• Emails sent
• Emails received
• Emails billed
• Knowledge base queries
• Query results
• Average usefulness

Lower down the page, the statistics are broken down by system user and email address. Using the trial account you will only have the admin user and one email address so these lines will both show 100%. However SupportByEmail.com can allow multiple users to answer emails using the same knowledge base, and for you to receive messages using several different email addresses and this part of the statistics page will show you which user is doing the most work, and which email address is most popular. Managing users and email addresses is explained in detail later in the tutorial.

Next: Activating your account

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