New Features – Answerbase https://answerbase.com Wed, 07 Aug 2019 17:18:22 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=5.2.20 https://answerbase.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/cropped-favicon-32x32.png New Features – Answerbase https://answerbase.com 32 32 Offer Rewards to Your Members for Creating Valuable Content https://answerbase.com/2018/08/07/offer-rewards-to-your-members-for-creating-valuable-content/ Tue, 07 Aug 2018 17:42:11 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=794 Answerbase has rolled out its Rewards Program functionality, allowing you to offer tangible rewards to your members for their contributions….so they can exchange any points

The post Offer Rewards to Your Members for Creating Valuable Content appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Answerbase has rolled out its Rewards Program functionality, allowing you to offer tangible rewards to your members for their contributions….so they can exchange any points they’ve earned for real world prizes.  Perhaps you want to offer a great t-shirt or mug with your company’s branding on it, or perhaps a gift certificate to your own store or other stores (Tip: treat them to coffee to keep them energized so they can continue writing for you!)….whatever your prizes are, they can help create an incentive for your members to invest their time and energy into making valuable contributions to your company’s content.

Administration Capabilities

Enabling the rewards program for your site

In your administration site under “System Settings”, you’ll notice a new option called “Rewards Program” where you can manage your settings, prizes, and see a redemption history.  Click into this area to get started and manage your settings, so you can start given your users added incentive for creating content.

Program Settings

You’ll notice a “Program Settings” tab when you first enter the rewards program page, which will allow you to enable the program as well as customize your message around the program.  This will allow you to communicate your message about your program rules, what prizes they’ll have available, and how many points they must earn in order to order those prizes.

Manage Rewards

When visiting your “Manage Rewards” tab, you can add all of the prizes that you’re going to support for your program, identifying the reward title, how many you have in inventory, as well as how many points the user will need to order that prize.  You have easy capabilities to add, edit and remove items as you’d like.

Rewards History

Admins will be able to see a history of what awards have been redeemed, and have different filters around that list so they’re able to see the exact items they’d like to and keep track of the award redemption activity.    You’re able to see a unique transaction ID for each order, what item was ordered, who ordered it, any special delivery instructions (if provided), and what the order status is.  Every new order for an item will display as “Pending”.  Once you’ve completed and sent the order, you can mark an order as “Fulfilled” which will allow you to keep track of all items you’ve taken care of and what there is left to do.

Member Account

From a member’s perspective, when you have the rewards program enabled, for every point they’ve earned on the system the platform will keep a “Rewards points” total (this won’t impact their reputation) where they can choose to put any points they’ve earned towards redeeming prizes.  This allows them exchange points they’ve earned through their contributions and participation, and get real world prizes for their efforts.

Redeeming Prizes

Under their account the member will be able to see a “Redeem prizes” option, which will allow them to see the total of rewards points they’ve earned as well as the prizes that are currently in stock and available to redeem.  The user can choose the item they’d like to order, and then submit their order with any delivery instructions so that site administrators can fulfill it.  Please note that users will only be presented with items where there is inventory available, taking into account how much inventory you have in stock as well as any orders that have already been submitted but still pending fulfillment.

Rewards History

Members will be able to view a full history of all of their orders, so they can keep track of order status and when the order is fulfilled.  This ensures that members know exactly what they’ve ordered and see details of what is going on with it.

 

Answerbase encourages site owners to use the rewards program in order to create an appealing incentive to members to continue contributing valuable content.  That content and engagement will benefit both your brand and your business, as you’re able to efficiently create incentive for your membership.

The post Offer Rewards to Your Members for Creating Valuable Content appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Supercharge Your Link Building through Answerbase’s “Related Content” Features https://answerbase.com/2018/06/07/supercharge-your-link-building-through-answerbases-related-content-features/ Thu, 07 Jun 2018 17:45:36 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=251 Answerbase now allows you to easily identify the relationship between the questions that your users post and other relevant content that you have on your

The post Supercharge Your Link Building through Answerbase’s “Related Content” Features appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Answerbase now allows you to easily identify the relationship between the questions that your users post and other relevant content that you have on your site including tutorials, videos, articles, blog posts, white papers, etc.  This effectively presents all of the most relevant content you to satisfy the needs of your visitors, while creating a web of relevant interlinking pages that search engines love.

You now have the tools to identify other content that is related to each question posted on your website, giving you the ability to link to that content which builds links for search engines to crawl as well as presents your users with all the relevant information they need to resolve their issues.

In your administration interface, when you view a question, look for the “Related Content” area where you can identify the URL of your related content and also create a Link Title that will most effectively lead visitors to these pages on your site and increase the SEO value of those terms for your pages.  Answerbase tracks the CTR of each content link you make available, prioritizing the content that most effectively fills the needs of your visitors and making sure they’re presented with the most relevant information.

Answerbase’s “Question Tab” and “Full Featured” widgets have also been enhanced so that when you put an Answerbase widget on your your existing content pages (articles, tutorials, videos, etc.), any questions that are asked from those pages can be automatically associated with that page and immediately create a new relevant link to your content.  This allows you to accomplish link building to your content through natural user interaction, establishing a spiderweb of links that are each connected with mutually relevant information.  This also achieves the ability to show “Page Specific Q&A” where you can show the most popular questions on a specific article, tutorial, etc….giving your users the information they need surrounding your content and also giving you insights into how you may want to improve your content through answering questions that are of common interest.

Finally, Answerbase customers also can utilize our APIs to relate content to different questions and make sure that connection is established there as well.  This new set of features makes sure that you can give your users the best available information to satisfytheir inquiries, which increases your brand recognition, saves you time, and is an automated way of optimizing your website for more search engine traffic.

The post Supercharge Your Link Building through Answerbase’s “Related Content” Features appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Reward Members for Referring Your Site & Growing Your Community https://answerbase.com/2017/10/02/reward-members-for-referring-your-site-growing-your-community/ Mon, 02 Oct 2017 20:47:55 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=785 Answerbase administrators can now enable a referral program, where you can reward members for successfully referring their own colleagues and friends to become members of your

The post Reward Members for Referring Your Site & Growing Your Community appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Answerbase administrators can now enable a referral program, where you can reward members for successfully referring their own colleagues and friends to become members of your community.  Your current members will earn reputation points for each successful referral, further recognizing them for their contributions.

Administration Referral Program Settings & History

You’ll see this new functionality as an option within your administration site, under “System Settings > Referral Program”.  There you will see the option to enable the program, and also some settings you’ll want to define for your program.

  • Points per Successful Referral: You’ll be able to define how many points a member will get if they refer somebody to your site, and then the referral successfully leads to the registration of that contact as a new member.
  • Days to Accept Invitation: You’ll also be able to define how many days the referred contact has to signup for it to count towards the program.  This helps ensure that your members have a sense of urgency to promote the service and help convert their colleague as a newly registered member.

The above settings provide both the incentive to refer their contacts to become members, but also a sense of urgency so they assist in making it happen and ensuring the referral turns into a registration.

In your settings area you’ll also notice a new “Referral History” tab, which will allow you to keep track of all the referrals that your community is sending out as well as their status.  You can filter that list by time frame as well, giving you the ability to see all of the activity related to this program and the status of requests.

Member Referral Management

When you enable this new functionality, your members will see an option in their account for the referral program.  When they choose to “Refer a friend” they’ll be presented with a form which will (1) confirm their own information which will be communicated as the person the referral is coming from and (2) confirm the list all the friends they would like to refer to the program.

Once they submit the “Send Referrals” button, it will send their friends an email inviting them to the program.  As an administrator, you have the ability to edit what that email says under “Customization > System Emails” in your administration area.  You’ll notice a new email type called “Friend Referral Email”, and you have the ability to edit that default email template into whatever you’d like to represent your brand.

Your users also have the ability to keep track of all the referrals they’ve sent through their own “Referral history”.  Clicking on this option will show them a full list of referrals they’ve made as well as the status of those referrals.

Finally, for any successful referrals, your members will be able to see any points they’ve received when reviewing their reputation points overview on their profile…where there will be a new line item identifying points received from successful referrals.

This new program allows you to further expand your membership, utilizing the power of your current members and their connections for the benefit of other members and your company.

The post Reward Members for Referring Your Site & Growing Your Community appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Lock Down Question Threads from New Posts by Members https://answerbase.com/2017/02/28/lock-down-question-threads-from-new-posts-by-members/ Tue, 28 Feb 2017 14:15:24 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=755 There are certain questions that pop up that require an answer from your company and designated experts, and you want to control that message for

The post Lock Down Question Threads from New Posts by Members appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
There are certain questions that pop up that require an answer from your company and designated experts, and you want to control that message for that specific Q&A thread.  Now you’re able to lock down a specific question thread so that no members are able to add any additional comments or answers to that thread.  This allows you to choose specific posts where you control the message 100%, while still allowing member posts on other content on the system where it makes sense.

You can find this new feature in your administration site when viewing a question, just click into the “Settings” tab on the question thread and you’ll see a new setting available.

2017-02-13_1009

This new feature allows you to enjoy the benefits of peer to peer support, while also empowering you to control the content of posts that warrant it.

The post Lock Down Question Threads from New Posts by Members appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Define a SLA Response times for your site, categories, and individual questions https://answerbase.com/2017/02/13/define-a-sla-response-times-for-your-site-categories-and-individual-questions/ Mon, 13 Feb 2017 16:07:14 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=741 You’re able to define an SLA (Service Level Agreement) response time for your Q&A activity, where you can define how quickly your team needs to

The post Define a SLA Response times for your site, categories, and individual questions appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
You’re able to define an SLA (Service Level Agreement) response time for your Q&A activity, where you can define how quickly your team needs to make sure there is a response to visitors questions.  This helps ensure that your asking visitors get a prompt response and have a positive experience with your organization and brand.

Enabling an SLA for Your Site

You will see that under your “Settings > General Settings” you now have the ability to enable a default SLA response time for your system, which will apply generally to any questions that are posted.  You can also choose whether your turnaround time will be communicated to users or not, or if it will simply be a turnaround time that is used by your team to control quality.

You can also set these response times per category or even on the question level, which helps you manage cases when there are certain questions or types of questions that require quicker attention than others.  You can find those options under the “Settings” tab when looking at a question or category.

Setting SLA Reminders

When you’ve set SLA response times for questions that come in, you can have your moderators reminded when a question has not been responded to and is either approaching the SLA or has past the defined response time.  You can enable a moderator’s ability to be assigned to content and be notified about content under their moderation settings (user’s admin profile, under the “Moderation” tab), where you can see a new option to enable SLA reminders.

Managing SLA Reminders

When a question’s SLA approaches the time that it is due, it will be assigned to the appropriate moderators based on the settings above and they will receive an email letting them know that the question is coming up to the time that it is due.  Additional reminders will be sent if the question becomes due or has gone past its due date, helping to ensure that your team stays on top of any overdue questions and manages those.

The questions will be assigned to the appropriate users who are responsible for SLA reminders, and they’ll be able to see the content that has spawned a reminder in their “My Work” area.

These tools allow you and your team to make sure you’re providing quality responses to your audience in a timely manner.  Everybody loves responsive support, so we encourage you to use these tools to help you be on top of your inquiries for the good of your business and your customers.

The post Define a SLA Response times for your site, categories, and individual questions appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Expand Your Content with Articles https://answerbase.com/2016/11/17/expand-your-content-with-article-support/ Thu, 17 Nov 2016 15:51:30 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=721 You are able to grow useful content in a Q&A format to make sure that all of your audience’s questions are answered and their informational

The post Expand Your Content with Articles appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
You are able to grow useful content in a Q&A format to make sure that all of your audience’s questions are answered and their informational needs are satisfied.  Of course, there are certain topics where its helpful to do a deeper dive with an answer, and other times it becomes helpful for high-demand topics to be covered in an in-depth article or “how to” post.  Now Answerbase provides Business and Enterprise Plan customers with the ability to support both Q&A content and articles for these purposes.

Enabling Articles

You’ll see in your “Settings > General Settings” area that you have some new options here, where you can enable Articles lists to show on your site, as well as an “All Posts” tab which will show all of the relevant content from all of the content types you choose to enable for your platform.

Public Display

On the public interface, based on the options you enable as mentioned above, your users will be able to browse both your Q&A and Article knowledge base content in a user friendly way.   You can enable an “All Posts”  tab to show both Q&A and article content, and they’ll also have a new “Articles” tab available where they easily filter through the content that’s relevant to their needs.

Of course, that same navigation will stay consistent when users search and browse topics as well, giving them a familiar navigation experience to find all the information they’re looking for.

Managing Articles

When in your administration interface under “Content”, you’ll notice a new “Articles” option.

From there, you’re able to add new articles and manage articles for your site.

When creating and editing an article, you have similar capabilities as you do with Q&A content, where you can enhance your articles with rich text editing features (bold, italics, images, video, and even custom html).

Content Insights

Finally, through Answerbase’s Content Insights, we will let you know when you have questions that are highly popular with your audience and worthy of your team doing a deeper dive and write an article on a demanded topic.  Those are displayed for you within your content insights area.

You’ll notice that under your “Recommended Action” items, “Create an Article” will be a new call-to-action when that makes sense as well.  These new tools enable you to focus your time and resources on topics that you know your users are interested in, allowing you to ensure a better ROI for your efforts, high quality content and more satisfied users.

The post Expand Your Content with Articles appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
“Moderation Area” is being Updated and Renamed as “My Work” https://answerbase.com/2016/09/07/moderation-area-is-being-updated-and-renamed-as-my-work/ Wed, 07 Sep 2016 21:37:06 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=709 We have some exciting new updates that are scheduled for release in September, including an update to the “Moderation Area” functionality which will provide a

The post “Moderation Area” is being Updated and Renamed as “My Work” appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
We have some exciting new updates that are scheduled for release in September, including an update to the “Moderation Area” functionality which will provide a much better workflow and user experience for you moving forward.  There are a few changes that you’ll notice after the release that we wanted to point out.

Dashboard & Main Navigation

First, you’ll notice in the main navigation that you’ll no longer see the “Moderation Area” option, but rather a new “My Work” area.   That area has been redesigned for a better user experience so its easier than ever to get to the items that have been assigned to you for moderation if you’re a Moderator, and for you to manage assigned content as an Administrator.   You’ll also notice that right on your dashboard, there is a “My Work” preview tab front-and-center, allowing you to get a quick snapshot of what you’re responsible for and then allowing you to easily click into the content you’re interested in seeing.

My Work Area (Previously “Moderator Area”)

As mentioned above, to manage all of your moderation tasks you’ll now go into the main navigation selection called “My Work” where you’ll have a much easier view of the items that have been assigned to you.  You’ll also be able to easily filter to see specific assignment types.  So, for example, if you want to only see the New Questions that have been posted you can just select that from your filter options to display that specific time of content that is assigned to you.

As before, if you have the Administrator role, you can see the assignment lists for other users on your team as well.  This gives Moderators the ability to effectively manage all of the content that has been assigned to them, as well as Administrators the ability to effectively review and redistribute content when necessary.

This area will show you all of the Content, Users, and Tags (if applicable) that is assigned so you can easily manage those items.

User-Specific Moderation Settings

As before, the users that have the Moderator role will have a “Moderation” tab available when you view a user’s profile on the administration site, which controls the settings for what types of content they’ll be assigned to and responsible for.  You’ll see that improvements have been made to that interface as well, to allow for the same types of responsibility assignment controls …managed within an easier-to-use interface.

These adjustments have been introduced to introduce a much easier workflow for you as you’re reviewing content and answering questions, so hope you enjoy the new changes.  If you have any questions we encourage you to contact Answerbase Support.

The post “Moderation Area” is being Updated and Renamed as “My Work” appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Save Drafts of Answers for Future Use or Answer Collaboration! https://answerbase.com/2015/08/12/save-drafts-of-answers-for-future-use-or-answer-collaboration/ Wed, 12 Aug 2015 14:31:12 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=576 Hope everybody has been well.  We’ve just launched a new “Save Answer Draft” feature for Business Plan customers which will allow you to save drafts

The post Save Drafts of Answers for Future Use or Answer Collaboration! appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Hope everybody has been well.  We’ve just launched a new “Save Answer Draft” feature for Business Plan customers which will allow you to save drafts of your answers.   This will allow you to save what you’re doing if you’re interrupted and need to come back to finish later, or also allows you to collaborate with other team members to come up with the best possible response to a question.

You’ll find this feature under your “Answer Question” text area as seen here:

 

blog-1_2015-07-09_0918

 

 

 

 

You can save multiple drafts and those will list out on the right side of your “Answer Question” text area, where you can revert back to a previous draft at any time.

After you’ve saved a draft, for other moderators or administrators viewing the same question, they can clearly see that you are drafting an answer and even propose edits to your drafts in order to develop the most effective answer to each question.  This gives you the ability to communicate with a colleague when necessary so they can propose valuable edits or even give approval of specific content that you want to run by them, and then you can make any last minute changes before posting a great answer.

We hope you like that new feature and let us know if there is anything you’d like to see on Answerbase by sending us a note on our Contact Us form.

The post Save Drafts of Answers for Future Use or Answer Collaboration! appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Communicate Effectively with Internal Question Notes! https://answerbase.com/2015/08/04/communicate-effectively-with-internal-question-notes/ Tue, 04 Aug 2015 14:00:03 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=574 We’ve been supporting the ability for administrators to write notes back and forth to each other in the administration site for select Enterprise Customers, as

The post Communicate Effectively with Internal Question Notes! appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
We’ve been supporting the ability for administrators to write notes back and forth to each other in the administration site for select Enterprise Customers, as they collaborate on building a great answer for questions.  Now we’re bringing this feature to Business Plan customers as well.

You’ll find the new feature available when you’re viewing a new question that comes in, where you’ll now see a “Notes” tab on the question details page with an easy-access “Add New” option there.  That functionality allows you to post notes to your self as well as back and forth to other administrators and moderators as you look to most effectively address a new question that has come in.

We hope you like that new feature and let us know if there is anything you’d like to see on Answerbase by sending us a note on our Contact Us form.

The post Communicate Effectively with Internal Question Notes! appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
Additional Anti-Spam Tools and Access Restriction Capabilities https://answerbase.com/2015/07/28/additional-anti-spam-tools-and-access-restriction-capabilities/ Tue, 28 Jul 2015 14:33:35 +0000 http://blog.answerbase.com/?p=589 We’ve released some new anti-spam settings in your administration interface which allow you to restrict user postings by Country, allowing you to target specific countries or regions

The post Additional Anti-Spam Tools and Access Restriction Capabilities appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>
We’ve released some new anti-spam settings in your administration interface which allow you to restrict user postings by Country, allowing you to target specific countries or regions that you want to either restrict postings to or avoid postings from.  You can find these new features under “System Settings > Anti-Spam Settings”.

With these new features, you’ll be able to choose to identify a list of countries and then determine whether the system will be looking for content being posted “from” or “not from” the defined countries.  Once you’ve enabled this feature, you can also choose how you want to manage that content that is recognized as being from or not from the countries you’ve identified.  You can choose to either keep content published from your defined countries unpublished until review, or you can choose to block those users from posting altogether.  This can help site owners restrict posting capabilities per country, and using these features in concert with our other anti-spam features to help ward off any countries which may be prone to harboring spammers.

We’ve also enhanced your ability to see which countries specific users are accessing from, so when you visit a user’s profile in your administration interface….make sure the “Account” tab is selected and you can then click the “Access History…” link on that tab.  This will give you a list of all IP Addresses and Countries a user has accessed the system from and also giving you the ability to block both Countries and IPs in case of abuse.

We hope you like that new feature and let us know if there is anything you’d like to see on Answerbase by sending us a note on our Contact Us form.

 

The post Additional Anti-Spam Tools and Access Restriction Capabilities appeared first on Answerbase.

]]>