How to decide between snippets and custom answers?

Question

I’m trying to share with my team how we can improve the Fin performance over time. Obviously, making sure Fin has access to great answers for the most commonly asked questions is a top priority. So, let’s say you have a very common question that you want to ensure Fin can give a good answer to. When do you opt for creating a custom answer and when do you pick a snippet?I think I have a fairly good idea of the basic functionality of the two options from reading the Intercom documentation, but I still struggle to say when to go for which option…Happy for any best practice advice here!

Beth-Ann · Accepted Answer

Hey @Henrik Lenerius😃Beth here from the Automated &Proactive Support team at Intercom. That’s a great question and one which we’ve asked ourselves! Here’s how we see their use case differing…The important thing to know about Custom Answers is that they will trigger first if they match the customer’s question (before any AI answers with Snippets/Articles etc.) So if you have a specific answer or solution to a particular question your customers ask, you would create a Custom Answer to ensure Fin prioritizes this response. Custom Answers are built into Workflows so they can take a little longer to set up, but this allows you to use conditional rules such as “If the customer is X, give Y answer, else give Z answer”. They can also include Custom Actions and Objects which allow Fin to fetch external data and take actions like finding a customer’s order and processing a refund. This gives you greater control over how the conversation flows and what happens at each stage.Example:Customer: “Can I reschedule a delivery?”Custom Answer: “You can reschedule a delivery up to 24 hours before the delivery time. Would you like to reschedule your delivery?”Customer: “Yes” (reply button)Custom Action: “Fetching your orders now… Please pick a new delivery slot: [10:00] [12:00] [15:00].” (reply buttons)*Customer selects [15:00]*Fin: “Your delivery has been rescheduled!”Snippets, on the other hand, are used to generate answers with AI (the same as your Help Center articles). However, unlike your Help Center, Snippets are not public and only supplement Fin’s answer quality and coverage. For example, you might have a known bug which is generating volume for your support team this week. Instead of passing these conversations onto the team to give the same response, you could quickly create a Snippet with this information in a simple Q&A format that Fin will reuse when customers run into this issue. In this instance, Snippets are a great low-lift solution to a temporary problem because they don’t take long to create and Fin can instantly start using them to reduce volume. They’re also quick to delete when you no longer need them and won’t break anything 😉So where Custom Answers allow you to decide exactly when and how they’re used, Snippets are basically saying “here’s some information, use it where you think it’s appropriate”.Example:Question: “Why is it giving a 500 error message when I make a booking?”Answer: “Our engineers are looking into this issue. In the meantime, here’s a temporary workaround…”I also understand what@Charlie Pis saying and making knowledge management easy is close to my heart😅 Creating an FAQs article or section within a relevant article is a really good way of consolidating and storing all those answers you want Fin to have access to, while also putting them in a more public place for customers to self-serve.

Charlie P · Answer

Personally, I’ve made a conscious decision not to ever use snippets. For me, the benefit of moving to Fin was to stop having to manage loads of custom answers. Snippets just feel like a step backwards. So I tend to put all commonly asked questions into a FAQ section within the relevant help article. That said, perhaps there is a use case for snippets that I’ll encounter at some point - nothing is set in stone!

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