KNOWLEDGE BASE 1. SHORT ANSWER CONTENT/SUMMARY LINES 2. LIMIT NUMBER OF ANSWERS PER PAGE

Transcription

1 KNOWLEDGE BASE Learn specific ways to optimize your RightNow knowledge base to help your customers find the information they need. Review these best practices, including tips on configuration settings, Answer creation, reports and more, are based on thousands of RightNow customer implementations. Start improving your RightNow knowledge base search today! 1. SHORT ANSWER CONTENT/SUMMARY LINES We recommend using the shortest summary lines possible. I suggest six words or less. The summary lines do not need to be in the form of a question because a statement is a shorter and easier way to write the summary lines. In a knowledge base, the end users are trying to scan info quickly and easily. Longer summary lines are visually difficult to read and do not inspire end users to read them Short summary lines draw me in visually, I know I don t have to do much work I should be able to scan all 15 Answers in less than 10 seconds Use consistent terms (e.g. If you call it , don t use or e mail in your Answers.) Example: BEFORE: Where can I find the current information about how to install version 8? AFTER: Installing version 8 2. LIMIT NUMBER OF ANSWERS PER PAGE

2 We recommend Answers per page. I have found over the years that there are some end users out there that are stifled by 10 Answers per page and will look at the 10 Answers on the page and say I looked at your 10 Answers and didn t find what I needed, so I called you. Considerations: If the end user has to scroll, try to make the header smaller and clean out extra text at the top. Don t compromise and stay at 10 Answers just because your summary lines are too long shorten them, then go to Answers Remove the three lines of text and the Date Updated (new page set defaults) Only the clickable summary lines should be showing 3. PRODUCT/CATEGORY ASSOCIATION Not many people know that the names of the Products and the names of the Categories are searchable and indexed for searching. Many times a search is performed and way too many Answers are returned and you cannot figure out why. Generally, it is because the Product and Category names have been indexed for searching and the search term used happens to also be in the Product or Category name. Example: I search for: product download You have a Category called Drivers and Downloads also a Category called Product Pre-sales info My search will return all the Answers associated to Drivers and Downloads AND all the Answers associated with Product Pre-sales info Also, it will return all the Answers outside of those Categories that have the words product or download in them. A search like this could return hundreds of Answers. Considerations: The good news is that we can reduce the weight of the Product and Category names to zero, which essentially eliminates the Product and Category names from being searchable. This can be done in Settings, then Common, and SRCH_PROD_WEIGHT and SRCH_CAT_WEIGHT. You also have the option of excluding certain words from being searchable as well in the stop words list (exclude_answers.txt see next section to learn more).

3 4. WEIGHTS OF EACH ANSWER SECTION/KEYWORDS BOX Each section of the Answer is broken down by its importance to the search and carries weight in the search engine. By default, the Product and Category names carry the same importance as if they were sitting in the keywords box, a score of 50. Default Scores for each section: Product 50 Category 50 Keywords Box 50 Subject(Summary) 45 Question 30 Answer Body 4 File Attachments 4 If your Product and Category names are not valuable to the search, I suggest setting the SRCH_PROD_WEIGHT and SRCH_CAT_WEIGHT values to zero 0. If you leave the rest at their default settings, the searching works very well if you are using unique Products and Categories that would not be found normally in the content of the Answers. Keywords Box If you add words to the keywords box, make sure they do not already exist in the Answer. I recommend using the "Keywords" box sparingly and conservatively in your Answers. Use it only for words that are NOT contained anywhere else in the Answer. If the word is already in the Subject (Summary), Question, or Answer, there is no need to add it to the "Keywords" area in the Answer. These three sections are already

4 indexed by the search engine, so therefore, you do not need to duplicate words in the keywords box. This is the most common misconception out there about the RightNow knowledge base search functionality. It is true that you can add keywords to the keywords box to give it extra weight and bring a certain Answer to the top, but I suggest only doing this for a few Answers and not get into this habit regularly as it will overweight everything artificially and return bad Answers. Example: Subject: Installing version 8 Question: How can I install version 8 most effectively? Answer: Download the exe file attached and it will walk you through an install wizard that is easy to use. There is a Help icon in the upper right corner if you get stuck. Keywords: upload,v8 Notice the words upload and v8 are nowhere to be found in the Answer, but I wanted them to be searchable for just this Answer so I put them in the keywords box. One more thing to realize is that words in the Keywords box are stemmed for searching (e.g. install and installing are the same word). 5. AND/OR SEARCH You have the ability to change the search to a Boolean AND search or an OR search. This can be done in settings, RightNow User Interface, ANS_AND_SEARCH.By setting this setting to yes, the AND search puts an AND between the words the end user enters into the search box. If the setting is set to No (the default), the OR search is used and puts an OR between the words. Example: With the OR search >>If I search on download drivers, the Answers that are returned will have either download or driver or both With the AND search >> If I search on download drivers, the Answers that are returned have to have both download and drivers. Considerations: The AND search works well when: The AND works well only if you are diligent about keeping up with the keyword searches report and you are adding phrases to your Answers that people are actually searching for. The AND works well when the above condition is met and the knowledge base is quite large (e.g. 800 Public Answers or more). The OR search works very well when: You have short summary lines You have cleaned out old content that has not been used in a long time (Answers Last Accessed Report)

5 You have reduced the weight of the Products and Category names (SRCH_PROD_WEIGHT, SRCH_CAT_WEIGHT to zero) or you have used unique product and category names You have a smaller knowledge base Your product menu and/or category menu is short and simple 6. IMPROVE ALIASES/EXCLUDE-STOP WORDS FILES There are two files in particular that are especially important when configuring and tuning your knowledge base, aliases.txt and exclude_answers.txt (aka stop words). Aliases.txt - Use the Aliases.txt file in the File Manager, wordlist files to create synonyms. Make sure you are using consistent terms in your Answers. FORMAT of the Aliases.txt file: All capital letters No spaces on either side of the comma The words the customer searched on, then the comma, then the word(s) you use in your Answers The first word on the line has to be a single word. You cannot start the line with two words Any words after the comma are synonyms ONLY for the first word on the line. It goes left to right, but not right to left.

6 Example #1: If you call it " " (all one word), make sure you use that term " " throughout your Answers. If you notice on your Keyword Searches Report that people search for the term " " (notice the hyphen), then your Aliases.txt file would look like this: o , Example #2: You call it "job" in all your Answers, but you notice lots of people search for "career," "employment," "work for." Done correctly, these additions to your Aliases.txt file would look like this: o CAREER,JOB o EMPLOYMENT,JOB o WORK,JOB In contrast, here are incorrect examples of additions to your Aliases.txt file: o Job,career o Warrenty,WARRANTY o WORK FOR,EMPLOYMENT **Notice I did not start the line with WORK FOR (with a space) because you cannot use two words in the first position. You can make the two word phrase a synonym of something else, but you cannot make synonyms for the two word phrase. Also, make sure there are no spaces between the word and the comma.

7 7. KEYWORD SEARCH REPORT The Keyword Search report can be found in Service Reports, Site Reports, and Keyword Search. By default, it shows you all the searches performed in the last 30 days, but you can change the date range to be any timeframe you like. Use the Keyword Searches report to add Answers. You ll want to look for zeros in the Answers column. This shows that a search was performed and zero Answers were returned to the end-user. This is the next Answer you need to build, or you need to add that word or phrase to an existing Answer. You should sort the report sort to put all the zeros at the top. Click the Search button Under Limit and Order in the Order by area, click the hyperlink that shows your current sort In the new window, select Answers - Ascending as the first sort Then add Search Count - Descending as the second sort (using the Then [sort] by functionality) Also look for the searches returning 1 or even 2 Answers. Click on the Answers # to see EXACTLY what the customer typed in when s/he performed the search Then click on the Search String to see which Answers are returned when the search is performed In many cases the 1 or 2 Answers returned are not helpful at all This means you need to change some of the words in those Answers and/or build some new Answers Action Items in the Keyword Search report 1. Look for zeros a. Add new Answers b. Add keywords to existing Answers c. Add aliases 2. Look at the top searches a. See what is returned for those searches b. Make sure the top 10 Answer results are excellent Answers for that search i. You may need to clean out keywords ii. Shorten summary lines iii. Add new Answers iv. Change existing content to match how people are searching for it 3. Look at searches returning too many Answers a. Add common words people are using to the exclude_answers.txt file b. Use stopindex and startindex tags (see Answer 1985 for more details) c. Clean out keywords d. Shorten summary lines

8 8. ANSWERS LAST ACCESSED REPORT This report shows us which day and time each Answer was last hit (accessed) by the end users. The Score column is also helpful in this report because it shows the Solved Count of each Answer. The score (solved count) goes up when the Answer is used; the score goes down slowly when the Answer is not used or if the Answer is rated poorly after viewing. If you see Answers with a score of zero, these are your Answers that are used the least and/or the ones people found least helpful.