One article, and four things start answering.
Write the returns policy on a Tuesday. By that afternoon your web chat is answering customers with it, your WhatsApp assistant is answering the same question on a phone, your own team gets it back when they ask in chat, and your help centre has it. Nobody copied it anywhere.
The visitor typed how long do I have to send this back. The words returns policy appear nowhere in it.
How it is found
Matched by meaning, not by the words in the question.
The question below says nothing about "returns policy" and still finds it. The best passages come back scored, and the answer names the articles it used.
Not by keyword. The question above says nothing about "returns policy" and still finds it. The matched intent narrows the search to Returns and refunds, so nothing from another part of your site can come back.
- Returns policy: the 30-day window0.91
- What condition items must be in0.84
- How refunds are paid back0.77
You have 30 days from delivery to start a return, and items need to be unused with their original packaging. Refunds go back to the card you paid with, usually within five working days.
Scores and articles are made up for the example. The five best passages, the meaning-based search and the sources under the answer are how it works.
The way to improve an answer is to write a better article.
There is nothing to keep in step.
Most companies keep a handbook in one tool and customer answers in another, then maintain both badly and get caught when the two disagree. Here there is one set of articles. Change it and every answer changes, because there was never a second copy.
What you are not doing
- Training a botYou write an article, which you had to write anyway
- Maintaining two setsInternal and customer-facing are the same articles
- Wondering which is rightThere is only one, so there is nothing to disagree with
It answers with what that person may see.
A customer asking on your website reaches only what you published. Your own team reaches everything their role allows. Same articles, different doors, and nobody has to keep a separate public version in step with the real one.
Who reaches what
- A visitorOnly what you chose to publish
- Your teamWhat their role allows, and no more
- The assistantWhatever the person asking may see, never beyond it
A billing question never retrieves a shipping article.
Each kind of question can be pointed at one part of your knowledge, so an answer about invoices is written from the invoicing articles rather than from whatever happened to score highest across everything you have ever published.
Kept on topic
- Per kind of questionPointed at the section that should answer it
- Sources shownSo a wrong answer is traceable to a wrong article
- Nothing inventedIf it is not written down, it says so