While Q&As help you answer simple customer queries with pre-existing answers, Conversations are used for advanced activities like placing an order or checking an order status which requires a multi-step exchange of information between the user and the bot. 

Like Q&As, Conversations start by understanding the customer’s intent. After you define the customer intent, you can choose one of three options: trigger an automated dialog, transfer to an agent, or deflect to chat.

• Automated Dialog – An automated dialog tells SmartAssist that you want the customer to be driven through an automated experience. You can use the dialog tasks within the Kore.ai Automation Platform to build this further.Note: This is different from chat/call automation where a static chat or voice message is mapped to a use case and triggered by an event like hold, transfer, drop-off, etc. A dialog is scenario-based and thus, dynamic in nature. Dialogs are helpful to trigger a natural conversation with a customer or during a real-time response based on the current conversation and scenario.

  For example, “Hello! How are you today? Would you like to get your statement via email?” is displayed if a banking customer selects the “receive statement” option.    

• Transfer to an Agent – The user is directed to a live agent as configured in the Outgoing Call Setup (click here for more details). You can also choose to give the user an option to direct to an automated chat agent.
• Deflect to Chat – Transfers the current conversation from the call to the chat channel and user is provided with a link to initiate the chat experience.

Conversations Features

• Utterances – This is the conversational utterance typically used by customers in their queries.  For example, a customer looking for directions would ask – “How do I get to your outlet in South Beach?”
• Alternate Utterances – Used to augment the primary utterance with similar or alternative utterances like “Where is your South Beach outlet?”
• Experiences- Includes the response given to the customer and is configured differently based on the interface they use to call or chat at a SmartAssist-hosted contact center.
• Chat Experience – Delivered to a customer when they use chat on SmartAssist over a medium like a website widget. Responses can be configured for Automated Dialog, and Transfer to Agent flows here.
• Call Experience – Delivered to a customer when they call a SmartAssist -hosted call center. Responses can be configured for Automated Dialog, Transfer to Agent, and Deflect to Chat flows.

Conversations – Live Board

For the selected use case, the list of conversational utterances are available in the above live board view. The other fields displayed in the table view include the following:

Field	Description
Category	Displays the conversation category for that particular use case.
Calls	Displays the pre-defined call and chat experience response links for conversations over calls.
Chats	Displays the pre-defined call and chat experience response links for conversations over chats.
Status	Displays the status ‘Published’ if the conversation has been published otherwise displays ‘In Development.’
Action icon and menu	Click the ellipses icon in each row to view the action menu items. Then, Select the Edit option to edit the values for Conversations. Select the Delete option to delete the entry for Conversations.

Add a Conversation

To add a new Conversations use case, perform the following steps:

1. Navigate to Configuration > UseCases> Conversations tab, click + New Use Case.

          Note: You can select the bot for which you want to add use cases from the top            left side of the page (see the above image).

      2. In the New Use Case panel under General Setup 

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

     4. You can select the Use Case Type on this panel. 

• Customer Use Case: On selecting this, the Use case will be available for end       customers. Call Experience and Chat Experience tabs are displayed.
•  Agent Assist Use Case: On selecting this, the Use case will be available for         agents in agent assist and Triggers & Permissions tab is displayed.

          Note: If you select both check-boxes all three tabs  (Call Experience, Chat                  Experience, and Triggers & Permissions) are displayed.

          Note: If you select Enabled, the UseCase would be enabled. If user utterance              matches then the usecase would be triggered.

5. In the Category field, enter a category or select a category from the list. This helps you organize the Conversations 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.

7. Click Save to save the use case.

8. On clicking Save the new Use Case is displayed under Conversations as shown in the following image.

         Note: Under the Use Case Type the icons are displayed based on your                         selection, Customer Use Case Type and Agent Assist Use Case Type are                   displayed in this example as both options are selected.

In the preceding image, only Agent Assist Use Case Type is displayed for the first one, as per the selection.

Configure a Conversation

After you add use cases, you can complete the configuration under Call Experience and Chat Experience, Triggers & Permissions tabs (see the preceding image) or you can save the use case and configure later. The following sections explain the steps to be followed to complete the configurations.

Configure Call Experience

Call Experience has three types of configurations.  Click the Use Case under Conversations. In the Call Experience tab, select any or all of the following options:

• Automated Dialog
• Transfer to Agent
• Deflect to Chat

Automated Dialog

Select this to set an automated dialog for the current conversation. This option lets you set an automated dialog for the current conversation on the Kore.ai virtual assistant platform. You must add the required nodes and logic to build the desired conversation flow.

1. Callers for this use case will trigger an automated dialog that can be edited on the Bot Platform. 

      2. Click Edit in Bot Platform to access the platform. 

          Note: This option takes you to Kore.ai’s virtual assistant platform, where, by                default, a bot is generated with a Dialog Task for the current conversation. You            must add the nodes and logic flow for the use case. To know more see here.

The configuration options for this Call Experience feature include:

Agent Skills

This option redirects the user to an agent with the selected skill. To select the skill, do one of the following:

1. Select a skill group from the Agent Skills list.
   
2. You can select only a specific group of skills to map to the agent. Click Save to save the selected preferences.

Transfer to Agent

Users are transferred to a voice agent for further assistance. Configure the message to be played before the call transfer. You need to set up the outgoing call details to complete this configuration.

Pre-Transfer Message

This option lets you set the pre-transfer message that the user will hear before the agent transfer dialog begins.

The options available to set the pre-transfer message include:

Default Message

You can select either Default Message from the drop-down or create your own Custom Message. Click Save.

Custom Message

If you select Custom Message from the list, enter your message in the text box and click Save.

Offer Chat Deflection

If this option is enabled, the caller will be redirected to a chat agent for faster service when their response is ‘yes’. If disabled, the caller is put on hold for a voice agent allocation.

When enabled the caller is directed to Chat Automation or Live Chat Agent.

• Chat Automation – An automated chat experience as configured.
•  Live Chat Agent – A chat with a live agent is initiated.

In both Chat Automation and Live Chat Agent, configuration options are available to set either a Default confirmation prompt or a Custom message as the confirmation.

       Note: To understand the steps followed to select either Default Message or               Custom Message, see  Pre-Transfer Message.

Deflect to Chat

This option defines the deflection flow users will experience for the selected use case. Users are presented with a link to initiate a conversation with the chat agent.

Refer to Offer Chat Deflection to understand the Chat Automation and Live Chat Agent options and the configuration steps.

Configure Chat Experience

Chat Experience has two types of configurations.

1. Click the Use Case under Conversations.
2. In the Chat Experience tab, select either or both Automated Dialog or Transfer to Agent options.

• Automated Dialog: Chat conversations for this use case will trigger an automated dialog that can be customized in the Bot Platform. See Automated Dialog of Call Experience to understand the detailed configuration steps.
• Transfer to Agent: Users are transferred to a chat agent for further assistance. You need to set up the agent skills and configure the message to be played before the user is transferred to a chat agent. See Transfer to Agent of Call Experience to understand the details. You will not have the Offer Chat Deflection option available here. Configuration steps for Agent Skills and Pre-Transfer Message are the same as in Call Experience .

Configure Triggers & Permission

Under the tab Triggers & Permission, set the permissions for the options in the new conversation.

The following options can be enabled or disabled in this section:

• During Chats: If enabled, this use case can be manually or automatically triggered by the agent when they are engaged with a customer in a chat channel.
• During Calls: If enabled, this use case can be manually or automatically triggered by the agent when they are engaged with a customer in a phone call.
• During E-Mails: If enabled, this use case can be manually or automatically triggered by the agent when they are engaged with a customer in an email conversation.
• Skill Match: If enabled, this use case can only be triggered by agents who match the skills below.
• Agent Group Match: If enabled, this use case will trigger only for agents who are in the specified groups.
• Launch by Menu: If enabled, the use case will be listed in the menu of use cases in the agent assist window allowing the agent to browse and find this use case to trigger it.

Click Save to save the changes.

Additional Features

 In the Conversations 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 Use Case to modify the settings.
• If you want to delete the Conversation, click the more (vertical ellipsis) icon for the Delete option.