The ability to understand the context and return correct answers in natural language are now the least that can be expected from an artificial intelligence solution.
In our recent webinar “The secret of an effective chatbot” we talked about the importance of the knowledge base in building a chatbot.
In this article we go back to talking about the knowledge base to understand how to maximize the confidence level of your chatbot to achieve your goals in terms of effectiveness.
When can a chatbot be defined as “effective”?
Borrowing what emerged from our webinar:
“A chatbot is effective not only when it responds correctly, but above all when it knows how to independently manage even a complicated conversation, with changes of context that could put it in difficulty. A good bot has goals and knows how to achieve them, managing the context and involving the interlocutor. For example, making proposals to keep the conversation going and proposing a call to action”.
What is a chatbot’s knowledge base?
A chatbot’s knowledge base consists of the information and knowledge that the chatbot is able to use to answer user questions. The knowledge base can contain data on products and services, the list of FAQs to manage, company information, etc.
The knowledge base is organized according to a logical structure and a memory that allows the chatbot not only to draw on data, but also to manage the context of a conversation and be able to identify the correct answer.
The effectiveness of a chatbot largely depends on the quality of its knowledge base, since it is the basis on which the chatbot relies to answer users’ questions precisely and accurately. Therefore, knowledge base creation and management is an essential part of developing an effective chatbot.
Why is the knowledge base important for developing a chatbot?
A good knowledge base helps the chatbot understand the context of the conversation and provide relevant answers. Without knowledge of its business domain, the chatbot will not be able to understand the meaning of the questions asked by customers and respond effectively.
A well-organized knowledge base allows the chatbot not only to understand and manage the question, but also to return precise answers and speed up response times, generating optimal results in terms of conversation success and user experience.
How to create a good knowledge base for a chatbot?
To create a good knowledge base for a chatbot, you need:
Know the business domain of the company
Knowing the sector in which the company operates allows you to imagine and anticipate all those questions and possible directions of the flow of the conversation, to be included in the design of the solution, on the one hand, and in setting up the knowledge base, on the other.
Know your target
Knowing your interlocutors allows you to anticipate possible requests, but also possible alternative ways to ask a specific question.
Have command of the language
Knowing the language in which the chatbot must be able to interact is essential, to anticipate the possible ways in which a request will be placed, as well as particular terms, phrases and idioms.
Organize information
Before proceeding with the construction of the knowledge base, it is advisable to organize the information in a logical way using a mind map. This way, it will be easier for you to anticipate all possible conversation areas and question categories to anticipate.
Predict and imagine…
To ensure that the virtual assistant can return the right answers, we must maximize the level of confidence of the bot, integrating all the possible questions that users could ask (utterance), distinguish the intent (i.e. the intention of the request or action to take), in order to avoid that the bot can get confused (conflict).
Avoid questions that may cause the bot to conflict
A chatbot can conflict when it receives conflicting instructions or information from different sources or when user requests are ambiguous or contradictory.
When building the knowledge base, you must pay attention to not give the same answer for different questions.
Update the knowledge base regularly
During the webinar, the concept of “take care of our chatbot” emerged. Updating the knowledge base regularly allows you to include new information and keep the chatbot’s responsiveness up to date.
How to simplify these steps?
The Crafter.ai platform is designed to make the process of creating a chatbot as easy as possible.
The latest release of the platform integrates the generative AI of ChatGPT to make the knowledge base building step simple, fast and accurate.
By making a simple prompting request, the OpenAI plugin allows you to obtain a list of Q&As based on the domain of competence of the chatbot, which can then be expanded into variants and subvariants, within each individual question.
It is possible to select the most appropriate Q&A among those suggested by OpenAI and proceed to add variants by simply clicking on the ChatGPT icon button.
The Improve step also integrates the miss management function, i.e. any requests that are not included, which it will be possible to integrate into existing Q&As or insert into new questions that were not originally foreseen.
In this way, it will be possible not only to provide your bot with a quality knowledge base in a simple way, but also to take care of your chatbot, constantly updating it, based on suggestions deriving from interactions with users.
