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Your website assistant answers visitors in your site’s chat from what you give it: your website pages, your help articles, your saved answers and a few facts about your business. When it does not know something, it says so and offers to pass the question to your team. It never makes up prices, hours or policies. This guide teaches the Northwind assistant a few things it did not know, and checks each one with a test question.

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Open the assistant’s settings

Click Helpdesk in the left rail, then Website assistant at the top.
The Helpdesk tabs with Website assistant outlined

Website assistant, in the Helpdesk tabs

Only account owners and admins can change these settings.

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Try a question

Try a question on the right asks the assistant what a visitor might, with your saved settings. Nothing is sent to anyone, and it uses a little AI credit. Type a question and click Ask. Here, “Do you ship to Canada?” is not on the Northwind site, so the assistant says it does not know and would offer to pass it to the team.
Try a question: Do you ship to Canada? and the reply I'm sorry, I don't have the answer to that, outlined, with Write an answer for this outlined below

A question it cannot answer yet

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Write the answer it is missing

1

Click Write an answer for this

The question is filled in for you. Type what a visitor should be told.
2

Save it

Leave A saved answer the assistant can use now selected and click Save answer. (Pick A draft help article instead to write a longer answer and publish it later.)
Write an answer: the question Do you ship to Canada?, the answer Not yet: we ship within the United States only, and the Save answer button, outlined

The answer, saved for the assistant

3

Ask again

Click Ask again. The assistant now answers, and says where the answer came from.
The new reply Not yet, we ship within the United States only, and Answered from: Saved answer: Do you ship to Canada?, outlined

Answered from the saved answer

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Tell it about your business

1

Describe your business

Scroll to Business context and fill in what applies:
  • What does your business do? One or two sentences.
  • Services: what you sell or offer.
  • Do’s: how it should behave, for example where to point a kind of visitor.
  • Don’ts: hard lines, for example a promise it must never make.
  • Reference info: facts it can use, one per line, such as a minimum order or when tours run.
Keep it factual: the assistant repeats it to visitors.
2

Save

Click Save at the top right.
Business context: the description, Do's, Don'ts and three Reference info lines outlined, and the Save button outlined

Northwind's business details, and Save

3

Set your opening hours

Under Business hours, click Set business hours. Pick your Time zone, tick the days you open and set the times. Then click Save. The assistant tells visitors your hours and whether you are open right now.
Business hours: Time zone Los Angeles, Monday to Friday 6:30 AM to 6:00 PM, Saturday 7:00 AM to 7:00 PM and Sunday 7:30 AM to 5:30 PM, outlined

Northwind's café hours, in Pacific time

These are your business’s hours. The hours your team answers chats are separate: Office hours on the Chat widget page.
Try a question again to check: here, “What is the minimum for a wholesale order?” is answered from the new Reference info.

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Answer what visitors already asked

Unanswered questions lists what visitors asked in the last 30 days that the assistant could not answer, in the chat or on a call. Click Write an answer next to one, and save it the same way.
Unanswered questions: What are you able to do?, asked once on Sep 28, with Write an answer outlined

A question a visitor asked

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Good to know

  • It reads your website every week. Under Where it finds answers, Your website pages reads up to 200 pages of your published site. Click Read my website now after you publish a big change.
  • What it knows, at a glance. What your assistant knows counts your help articles, saved answers and Reference info, and says what to do next.
  • It can do more than answer. Under What it can do in the website chat you can let it book appointments, save a visitor’s details to your contacts, take a message, or arrange a callback.
  • More: Website assistant, and to put the chat on your site, Chat widget.