Questions & Answers

Questions & Answers (Q&A)  are used  in scenarios where user queries are answered by a single response over Voice and/or Chat. They are used to configure simple queries like business working hours or contact details. The behavior is defined differently for voice and text modes. You can configure frequently asked questions and answers and SmartAssist behavior over phone and chat channels.

Q&A Properties

  • UseCase Name – Use Case Name or the Primary Question is the question that customers typically use for their queries. For example, a customer looking for directions to a given outlet would ask – How do I get to your outlet in South Beach?
  • Alternate Utterances – You can improve matching the user’s intent with the use case by adding alternate utterances like – Where is your South Beach outlet? 
  • Experiences – Experience is the response that customers receive. It is configured differently based on the interface used to reach a SmartAssist hosted contact center – Voice and/or Chat.
  • Chat Experience – This is the experience a customer receives when they reach SmartAssist over a chat medium such as a widget hosted on a website.

Q&A – Live Board


The fields displayed in the table view are as follows:

Field Description
Use Case The name of the use case.
Category The question category for the given use case.
Calls/Chats Displays the configure button to define the call and chat experience responses for Q&A.
Status Displays the status ‘Published’ if the Q&A has been published otherwise displays ‘In Development.’
Action icon and menu Click the ellipsis in each row to view the action menu. The Delete’ icon deletes the Q&A entry.

Add New Q&A Use Case

If you want to configure the responses under call and chat experiences for a new Questions & Answers use case, follow these steps:

  1. Navigate to Configuration and click the Use Cases in the left menu bar.
  2. On the Use Cases page, Default Automation Bot in the drop-down and Questions & Answers tab are by default selected.  You can select a different bot if required.


3. Click + New Use Case button.



4. The New Use Case panel is displayed and the tab General Setup is selected by default.


5. Enter Use Case Name, select Category, and enter user Utterances. Click Save to save the Use Case.

Note: In the Category field, enter a category or select a category from the list. This helps you organize the Q&As for easy management. 


6. Click + Add Another to add new utterances or search and add existing Utterances. 

Note: If you want to delete any utterance click the Delete icon provided next to the utterance.

Configure Question & Answers

After you add use cases, you can complete the configuration under Call Experience and Chat Experience tabs (see the preceding image) or you can save the use case and click Configure in the Calls and Chats columns. 




To configure a Q&A, perform the following steps:

  1. On the Use Cases page, under the Questions & Answers tab, you can find the list of questions added.
  2. For Call Experience, click the Configure link under the Call Experience column and enter the Response that users hear during a call.



3. Click + Add Another if you want to add one more response.

4. Click Save.

5. For Chat Experience, click the Configure link under the Chat Experience column and enter the Response that the user receives over the chat interface.


6. Click + Add Another if you want to add one more response.

7. Click Save. On clicking Save UseCase is successfully updated. 

Note: For Call Experience or Chat Experience at least one response is mandatory. If more than one response is available, the Delete icon is enabled. You can delete a response if required. System randomly selects the response to be displayed to the user.

Manage Utterances and Category

1. The number of utterances available for a Q&A entry are displayed under Utterances (see the following image).



2. To add alternative new utterance,  click + Add Another button.

3. Click Save. The utterance gets added to the Q & A.

4. You can search the utterances and also delete using the delete icon available for the Utterances.

5. Using Category drop-down, you can update the category.

Additional Features

 In the Q&As list view page, you can perform more actions as follows:

  • Use the Group by drop-down to arrange questions into groups based on Category or Status (In Development/Published).


  • Use the Search option to use matching words and search for a specific question.
  • Click on any Question to modify the settings.
  • If you want to delete the question, click the more (vertical ellipsis) icon for the Delete option.