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Best Practices using EasyAnswer in Parature, from Microsoft

Post Author: Joe D365 |

The goal of Parature, from Microsoft is to improve the customer experience with self-service by allowing customers to get answers fast and without opening a support ticket. If you can effectively facilitate this experience for your customer, it is a win/win because that means you are saving time and money on customer service tickets. With that cost savings, Parature can pay for itself within 6-12 months.

Creating this kind of self-service (also known as ticket deflection) is only as good as the design around it, however. In order to suggest the appropriate Knowledgebase Articles for the necessary tickets, you must first design an intuitive interface that seamlessly leads the customer to their resolution. In this blog, we'll discuss how to most effectively set up the EasyAnswer capability with Parature for maximum results.

The Customer Experience

As the customer enters text into the Summary or Details field of the ticket Parature will present to them articles containing the characters they are typing.

With an effective Knowledgebase structure and EasyAnswer Mappings the customer will inadvertently filter the Knowledgebase and Download content for themselves before they type in these fields. In the below example you would have parent "Product" folders in your Knowledgebase with child "Problem" folders. The user would be choosing one folder to search with the ticket form.

Let's walk through how you would set this up.

How to set it up

This is done by creating ticket fields and pre-chat questions that "filter" your Knowledgebase and Download Content while the end user fills out the form/answers the questions. These fields should be option
sets. Each option set value will have a corresponding folder. Whenever one of the options is selected all solutions not underneath the associated folder will be excluded from the possible solutions presented to the end user.

NOTE: Articles may live in more than one folder, for example, a "How do I change my Password" article may live in EVERY folder.

The most common fields used to set up are:

  • Product: denoting what the end user is seeking service regarding.
  • Problem: a more granular field that provides detail or context around the problem as it relates to the Product.

In order to structure the Knowledgebase to work with these two fields you require two levels of sorting.

 

  • First, select the folder with the name of your department (top most folder of the tree).
  • Click the New button to create the first product sub folder.
  • Name the first sub folder the first value in your Product option set, or other pertinent field.

     

Example: If Product 1 = X1 Carbon Lenovo Laptop then your first sub folder should = X1 Carbon Lenovo.

 

  1. Select the folder "X1 Carbon Lenovo" (or whatever your first product folder is) and click New.

The "New" button will always create a sub folder underneath the folder you have selected. You may adjust folder order from within the creation of a folder as well. The sub folder under "X1 Carbon Lenovo" should be the different Problems that are possible for this product. Some examples may include Hardware, Software, Screen, Keyboard etc.

Setting up EasyAnswer mappings

Now we need to set up the EasyAnswer Mappings. EasyAnswer Mappings are where we set which field values search which folders.

 

  1. Navigate to the Setup tab, expand Portal, select EasyAnswer Mappings, and then click the New Mapping button.
  2. Select the field you are filtering on then the value of that field (field must be Option Set).
  3. You may then check the box next to each folder that you would like to be searched when the field value you entered is selected.

 

Example: Our example we would select the field Product and the value "X1 Carbon Lenovo" then we would check the box next to our "X1 Carbon Lenovo" folder in the Knowledgebase and check the box as to whether you want to include sub folders automatically. You may create 1 mapping per product or 1 per problem, depending on how granular you would like to get.

 

2. Now navigate to Setup à Portal à EasyAnswer Settings and choose the Search Type from All words, any words or exact phrase, depending on how particular you would like to be.

 

Now the portal will present Knowledgebase articles regarding the X1 Carbon Lenovo as soon as the end user begins typing in either the summary or details field of the ticket form and ANY WORDS match our Knowledgebase Article. The idea is to present them with their solution prior to them submitting their ticket.

 

Ticket Deflection is an ongoing battle. Two ways to always be improving your deflection are:

  • Link to Article – When providing a solution to the end user via a chat or ticket interaction you should always insert the link to the article rather than the text. This will take the user to the portal to view their answer within the Knowledgebase. The idea being that, once they realize the knowledgebase exists, they go to the portal to search for their own answer prior to attempting to file a ticket.
  • Suggest to KM – KM = Knowledgebase Manager – Any time a ticket or chat interaction is closed with a solution that the CSR determines may be a repeat issue they should suggest the interaction to the KM. By constantly expanding your Knowledgebase you are, ideally, exponentially creating less work for yourself by deflecting more tickets.

Parature is a fantastic tool for both ticketing and knowledgebase management. However, when the two ideals are leveraged together, you are able to unlock the true potential of your Parature solution. For more information about the Dynamics CRM Unified Service Desk and case management visit the main PowerObjects blog. We have previously covered "10 Tips for Managing Auto Case Creation and Case Routing" and "Case Form updates for Dynamics CRM". For more ideas on how to improve your Parature instance, please visit the Parature Support Portal!

Happy CRM'ing!

 

Joe CRM
By Joe D365
Joe D365 is a Microsoft Dynamics 365 superhero who runs on pure Dynamics adrenaline. As the face of PowerObjects, Joe D365’s mission is to reveal innovative ways to use Dynamics 365 and bring the application to more businesses and organizations around the world.

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