Aide now looks up your help center and knowledge using what the customer is asking right now, not the whole back-and-forth. In long email threads, replies and drafts pick up the right article (returns and exchanges, shipping, sizing) far more reliably, and your privacy policy, terms and blog posts no longer crowd out the articles that answer the question.
How it behaves
- A customer writes again in a long thread: the search starts from their newest message. Quoted
earlier emails ("On Tuesday, Jordan wrote:", "From: … Sent: …", lines starting with
>) and signatures ("Thanks, Jordan", "Sent from my iPhone") are left out, so they can't push the new question out of the search. - Common words no longer count as a match: an article isn't picked just because it says "the", "your" or "hello" many times. The words that carry the question decide.
- Matching more of the question beats repeating one word: a page that matches several of the customer's words now ranks above one that only repeats a single word many times, such as a product page listing every size. Sizing and how-to articles are no longer pushed out by product pages that all say "size" or "width".
- Legal pages and blog posts stay out of replies: privacy policies, terms of service, cookie and
privacy-choice pages, accessibility statements, blog, journal and news posts, and help-center
pages that only list other articles are not used to write replies. Your return, refund and
shipping policies are still used, including Shopify's
/policies/refund-policyand/policies/shipping-policy. Nothing is deleted: these pages still show in your knowledge base and in knowledge search. - An article that partly answers is still used: when no article fully answers the question, Aide now writes from the one or two closest articles instead of having none to go on.
- Starred articles: starring no longer pushes an article to the top of every search. A starred article is used when it matches the question, and wins a tie against an equally good match.
- One product page per style: when a product comes in many colours or leathers, Aide considers
one of them instead of letting all of them fill the list, so your sizing and fit articles and
other styles still make it in (since October 16). The page kept is the colour the customer
named ("the black Chelsea"), else the one they are viewing or ordered, else one in stock and not
on pre-order. Colours whose product type abbreviates the style's name (a "Plain Toe" of type
Shoe-PTB) count as one style too. - Returns and exchanges: when a message is about starting or following a return or exchange, your help-center articles about returns and exchanges are always considered, up to two, the closest to the customer's question first (since October 16). This holds when returns is one of the topics Aide is confident about, even if another one leads ("these run long, how do I exchange them?" is about fit and an exchange). It also holds when the customer's recent messages ask in so many words (return, exchange, refund, send back, swap), even if Aide is unsure of the topic, so the same message gets the same articles every time (since October 16; English words only, other languages rely on the topic).
- Men's and women's products: when the customer asks for men's (or women's) shoes, products whose name or product type says they are for the other gender are left out, unless the customer named that product or nothing else fits (since October 16).
Also in this change
- Aide considers the 12 best-matching articles for each reply before picking the best four. (From October 15 it considered 20; since October 16 it is back to 12, which kept the same articles in Aide's tests at lower cost.) While ranking them, Aide again notes in a few words why each article fits, which keeps articles that answer the question, such as how to be told when a size is back in stock or a sizing workaround for a hard-to-fit foot, from being passed over (since October 16).
- The fit of a named product: when the customer names a product, or is viewing it, and its product page says which last or fit it is built on, your article about that last or fit is always considered, so a sizing answer can follow the right fit guide (since October 16). The product can be named in one of the customer's earlier messages, and a title starting with "Pre-Order" or "Coming Soon" still counts (since October 16). On a sizing or fit question about the product the customer is asking about now (the one they are viewing, or the one product their message names), the fit article is always given to the reply. Otherwise, for a product they already own or named earlier, or a question that isn't about fit, it is used only when Aide finds it relevant to the question, like any other article, so another product's fit guide doesn't steer the answer (since October 16). A question counts as about sizing or fit when Aide is confident of a sizing or fit topic, or when the customer's recent messages say so (size, fit, tight, loose, too big, too small, width, Brannock; English words only), so the same message gets the same fit article every time (since October 16). A product counts as named when the customer leaves out a descriptive first word of its name ("the Traveler Penny" for the "Unlined Traveler Penny"), so a message about two products doesn't get the fit guide of the one whose full name it uses (since October 16). When several products could be meant, the one the customer named most fully introduces the fit article with what its own page says, and another brand's model that shares a word with one of your products ("I wear an Acme Moc 875") is not taken for yours (since October 16).
- Product pages without review widgets: product pages synced from Shopify no longer carry review apps' widget code and review data (Judge.me, Yotpo and similar), only the product's own text and the details your team named, so replies read the product, not the widget. Product pages already synced are rewritten by Aide's team (since October 16).
- The same improvements apply to live chat, email, social channels and the reply suggestions agents get in the dashboard and helpdesk panel.
- A short follow-up is no longer drowned out by a long first message: Aide searches with the customer's newest message on its own as well as with the earlier ones, and uses the best of both. A "What size should I order?" after a long message about a custom order now finds your sizing articles, not only product pages.
- Quoted emails in other languages are left out too: reply headers from Gmail and Outlook in Korean, Japanese, Chinese, Russian, Ukrainian, Polish, Dutch, German, Swedish, Danish, Norwegian, Finnish, Vietnamese and other languages are recognised, in the search and in the email text Aide stores. When a customer's email quotes an earlier reply under a header Aide doesn't know, the search still leaves out the quoted text, because it repeats a message already in the conversation. This also works when Gorgias writes the addresses of links into the email text, as in "wrote: (mailto:…)".