Writing self-service material for AI is very similar to writing material for humans. However, there are some differences, and this guide aims to highlight differences and similarities, so that your self-service material works optimally together with Kundo's AI features.

Process: Test that your material works well

The most effective way to understand if your guides work well is to actually test them. Follow the step-by-step process below to quickly get the right effect of the AI functions. For many of our customers, we have seen a hit rate where 10-25% of incoming emails have a good matching guide.

1. Select some incoming emails of the type that is absolutely most common for you. If you use tags to categorize your emails, go to Statistics -> Tags to quickly find which categories are most common. If you don't tag, you have to go with your gut instead.
2. Check what answers Smart Suggestions give on those emails. If you have already answered the emails, you can go back to the first email by clicking on the three dots next to the first email, and click Reply. Then you see Smart Suggestions for the first email.
3. If the suggestions are already good, go back to step 1 and choose a new category
4. If the suggestions can be improved:
   • Read through the answers you have written to the customer. Consider if it is a way that would work for several similar questions.
   • Write a new guide that summarizes the answer in a good way. Try to formulate the guide so that it is useful for several similar types of questions.
   • Go back to the email and check that the new guide shows up. They should show up directly, so if they don’t, try to formulate the guide a little differently.
5. Repeat the process for all your most important types of emails

Tips: Write for the end user

A knowledge base can be structured in different ways, but the biggest difference is which target group it is aimed at. Internal knowledge bases are aimed at the colleagues at customer service, and aim to describe routines and procedures for different types of cases. An external knowledge base on the other hand - what we at Kundo call the Help Center - has the end customer as the target group and aims to help them solve their problem themselves.

For Smart Replies to be able to generate good answers, we recommend that the information is written with the end user as the target group. This ensures that the generated answers do not risk dealing with how customer service should handle the case, instead of how the end customer should solve their case.

A bonus of working in this way is that the material you write for the AI can actually in some cases also be published on your website to give double benefit when both end users and the AI can use the material.

Write like this: "To change your password, go to..."

And not like this: "If questions about passwords come up, ask the customer to go to..."

Tips: Don’t write too short guides

It's relatively common with guides that are only one sentence long, and that only answer a very specific question. The problem with those guides is that they very rarely will match an incoming email, as there is so little in them to match. So instead of just answering a specific small question, expand the text somewhat, and give both the end customer and the AI more context to go on. Also answer the most common follow-up question.

(Note however that there is currently a maximum limit for how long questions that can be sent to ChatGPT: about 4000 characters. So it's not good to write too long guides either. If guide + email becomes too long, an error message is displayed.)

Write like this: "In this guide you can read about how to change your password, and what to do when different error messages come up."

And not like this: "Click here to change your password."

Tips: Write clearly and informatively

A common mistake we have seen is texts that assume the reader is already an expert in the area they are reading about. That they understand abbreviations and internal terms, and that they therefore do not need to be explained. We have seen that the AI functions have directly improved when the texts explain the terms used.

Another mistake that is easy to make is to rely on information that the AI does not have access to, such as a link to an external system. Or that the information needed to understand a guide is only in the category the guide is in. Try to make the text readable with as little external knowledge as possible.
Tips: Avoid only having information in pictures

Currently, Kundo's AI features do not have the ability to read information in pictures or attached files. It may change in the future, but for the time being, all the information needed to generate a good answer needs to be in the text itself.

If the same guide is used for both the AI and as a Help Center where customers themselves can look for answers, it is of course good to use pictures for regular users. But then also make sure that the most important information is also included in the text in connection to the picture.

Write like this: "The process consists of three steps, where the first is to..."

And not like this: "See picture for process description."

Tips: One knowledge base is enough to handle multiple languages

Kundo's AI features support several different languages, and can seamlessly link questions in one language with answers in another. This means that it may be enough to write your self-service material in one language, and they can be matched with emails in several different languages. For example, a knowledge base in English can be used to answer questions in both Swedish, Norwegian and Finnish.

There are some exceptions to the rule "one knowledge base in one language, several inboxes in several languages":

• If you also want to use the material for end users, it obviously needs to be translated into all languages.
• If it's not just about different languages, but different countries/markets where different rules apply

Tips: Use a lot of structure when writing

Just like humans appreciate that a text contains a lot of structure, like headings, tables, bold text and lists, we have seen good results even in the AI when guides have been supplemented with more structure.

Write like this: "A good password should always contain both numbers and special characters"

And not like this: "Numbers and special characters are good to have."