From your own FAQ to an agent that answers it

Most businesses already wrote the hard part. Somewhere there is a page of questions customers ask every week, a services page, an opening-hours line, a returns policy. That is the knowledge a NetShow agent needs to answer a stranger well. This post shows how to hand it over, how to check what the agent took in, and how to decide what it says when a question falls outside it.

Where your knowledge goes

Open your agents list and press the wand button titled Unified Editor on the agent you want to teach. In the first row of tabs, Who Is Your Agent, open Knowledge. It opens on Knowledge Base, and the box you will use most is Knowledge Text.

Paste into it whatever the agent should be able to answer from:

• A page. Copy the text of your services page, your opening hours, your returns policy.
• A pasted FAQ. Question on one line, answer under it. Plain text works; headings help.
• The parts of a document that matter. Open the document, copy the sections a customer would ask about, and paste them in.

Under the box, Tags (comma-separated) lets you label what you pasted, for example bookings, returns, opening hours. Press Save at the top of the page before you leave the tab.

A word on documents

You will see a Knowledge Documents drop box on the same tab. Uploading a document straight into the agent's knowledge from this editor is coming. Until it arrives, paste the text instead: pasted text is the route our guide can vouch for, and it has one real advantage. You choose exactly which sentences the agent learns from.

Turning an FAQ into good knowledge

A few habits make pasted knowledge work harder:

• Keep each answer next to its question. One question per line, its answer under it, is the shape our guide recommends.
• Write answers the way you would say them. The agent will be speaking to people, often out loud.
• Cut what is out of date. An old price or a closed location in the box is a wrong answer waiting to happen.
• Say who handles what. If complaints go to a person, write that down; the agent can only pass on what it was told.

Check what it learned

Come back to the Knowledge tab. The Knowledge Text box shows exactly what you saved, nothing more and nothing less. That is the whole of what you gave it, so read it once as a customer would.

Then test it. At the top of the editor, next to Save, Chat opens a typed conversation with the agent and Talk opens a spoken one. Ask a question only your new Knowledge Text can answer. Read the answer, not the settings. If it does not reflect what you pasted, the agent is still leaning on the instruction set it was given at creation: say what you want more plainly, save, and ask again.

When a question is outside it

No FAQ covers everything, so decide ahead of time what the agent does at the edge, and write it down in words it can follow.

On the Personality tab, Soul MD is a free-form description of the agent's character and operating principles, and the natural place for rules such as "never promise a delivery date" or "always hand a complaint to a person". The agent's Edit screen adds guardrails: allowed and blocked topics, and custom rules. It also keeps its saved questions and responses.

Check one more setting while you are there. At creation, three capabilities are pre-selected for you: Web search, Memory recall and Memory store. If you want the agent to answer only from what you gave it, say so in Soul MD, and test a question it should decline before you publish.

FAQ

Can I upload a PDF of my FAQ?

Not straight into the agent's knowledge from the editor yet; that upload is coming. Open the document, copy the sections customers ask about, and paste them into Knowledge Text.

How do I see what my agent knows?

Open the Knowledge tab in the agent editor. The Knowledge Text box shows exactly what you saved.

What happens when someone asks something my FAQ does not cover?

The agent follows the rules you wrote. Say in Soul MD what it should do at the edge, set allowed and blocked topics on the Edit screen, and try an off-topic question with Chat before you publish.

Will customers see my knowledge while I am still editing it?

No. A new agent is private until you publish it. Nobody else can reach a private agent, so you can test and rewrite as often as you like.

Your next step

The guide behind this post shows the Knowledge tab, the Knowledge Text box, the Soul MD box and the Chat and Talk buttons exactly as they appear in the agent editor, with a short test to run after every change. It is a four-minute read. Open your FAQ in one window and the guide in the other, paste the answers your customers ask for most, save, and ask the agent one of those questions.

Then ask it one question your FAQ does not cover, and read what it says. When both answers sound like your business, you are ready to publish.