How can I prevent new incidents from being submitted via the Answer Feedback page?
Environment:
Answer Feedback, Message Bases
Oracle B2C Service
Issue:
We recently turned on the feature that allows end-users to provide feedback on our published answers. We have already had a number of customers using the feedback feature to submit new incidents instead. We would like to stop this from happening.
Resolution:
There is no way to ensure that new assistance requests are not submitted via the answer feedback option. Since the form allows free-form text, the end-user always has the opportunity to submit new questions within the form. However, there are a few of options you can consider in order to minimize how frequently this occurs.
Option 1: Modify Message Bases for the Feedback Page
By modifying the message bases that are used with the Answer Feedback page, you can discourage end-users from submitting new questions through this page. However, HTML is not allowed in most message bases, so minimal formatting is available.
To find and modify these message bases, use the path:
Configuration > Site Configuration > Message Bases > Search by Key or Text
As examples:
IS_THIS_ANSWER_HELPFUL_LBL
The default text of, "Is this answer helpful?" could be changed to, "Was this answer helpful? Please provide feedback on the contents here."
RATING_SUBMITTED_PLS_TELL_ANS_MSG
The default text of, "Your rating has been submitted, please tell us how we can make this answer more useful." could be changed to, "Your rating has been submitted, please tell us how we can make this answer more useful. Answer Feedback is routed to our Knowledge Base Team so published content can be reviewed. If you would like to contact our Support Team please submit your issue from our Ask a Question page."
This allows an administrator to modify the message base. They might want to include instructions to the user to go to the Ask a Question tab if they need a response to a question.
For more information on editing message bases, refer to Answer ID 383: Determining Which Message Base to Edit.
Option 2: Use a Standard Text Response to Send to the End-user
Another option to encourage only feedback about the answer is that when the answer feedback is submitted, you can create a standard response and a workflow rule so that a response is sent to the end-user thanking them for their feedback and informing them that feedback will be evaluated with regard to the answer.
You can include in the response that if they require an answer to their question, they must submit an incident through the Ask a Question page. Depending on your internal processes, you may soften the content of the standard response by state the 'preferred method' for receiving support is by submitting the question through the Ask a Question page instead of the feedback page.
To do this, use the steps below:
- First create a standard text response and enable the Rules Text check box. From the Configuration items, select Service > Standard Text.
For more information on configuring standard text responses, refer to Answer ID 483: Creating standard responses for incidents and chat.
- Configure an incident rule to append the response and send it to the customer. The rule would be set up similar to the following:
IF Incident Source is Answer Feedback
THEN Append Response Template to Response Field (highlight the appropriate standard response)
AND Send E-mail Response to Sender and Set Status
With this rule in place, when the incident is created from the feedback feature, the customer receives a response with instructions for submitting an assistance request through the preferred Ask a Question feature.
Option 3: Disable the Answer Feedback Feature
If you find that most of the feedback you get is really a new incident and that you are not getting true feedback about the content of your answers, consider disabling the feedback page entirely. Within Customer Portal, you must edit the detail.php page and remove reference to the AnswerFeedback widget.
To do this, refer to the 'Remove Answer Feedback from the Answer Details Page' section in online documentation for the version your site is running.
Option 4: Prevent Feedback from Creating an Incident
You can allow customers to still submit Feedback on an Answer but not have the Feedback create an incident.
The AnswerFeedback widget by default will pop up a form to allow the customer to enter in further details regarding their feedback, when a rating level is below a certain threshold value. To disable this, you will need to change the AnswerFeedback widget code in your Answer detail.php page to reflect a dialog_threshold attribute of 0:
Example: <rn:widget path="feedback/AnswerFeedback" dialog_threshold=0 />
This will still allow customers to provide Answer feedback but will prevent an incident from being created.
For more information, refer to the 'Change the Rating Threshold' in online documentation for the version your site is running. To access Oracle B2C Service manuals and documentation online, refer to the Documentation for Oracle B2C Service Products.
