The Product Advisor action asks customers a few questions to understand their specific needs, then recommends the products that best fit those requirements.

This action is designed for retailers who want to help customers in their research and discovery process.

For example, if a customer is looking into buying a bicycle, but doesn’t know anything about them, the Product Advisor action can help them narrow down what’s best, similar to how a salesperson would help them if they walked into a brick and mortar store.

How Product Advisor works

When a customer asks a question that triggers the Product Advisor action, alby will use your catalog information to filter available products based on their specific needs and preferences.

alby’s questions aren’t always explicitly filters like on your website’s category pages - it could infer information from a customer’s answers to find the best products.

The questions could include factors like budget, experience level, size, and style, depending on the product.

Customers can type their answers to the questions in the text box, or click the pregenerated answers.

Typical user cues

Product Advisor should be invoked by alby when customers ask things like:

• "Can you help me find a dress?"
• "Help me choose a snowboard."
• "Which running shoes are best for new runners?"
• "I need a laptop for video editing—any suggestions?"
• "What's a good beginner kayak under $800?"

Search Catalog versus Product Advisor

The Search Catalog action is automatically enabled for each alby Experience. It will return a list of available products matching specific queries, either due to a pre-generated prompt or a customer question.

Product Advisor provides a guided discovery process for customers through questions on their needs or preferences.

How to enable Product Advisor

Enabling on the Agent that’s used on the Experience or Chat instance is required to get Product Advisor to work. That allows your Agent to access the action.

To enable the Product Advisor action on an Agent:

1. In the alby dashboard, click Agents.
2. Select an Agent to modify.
3. Navigate to the Actions tab.
4. Click the Ask product advisor toggle.
5. The setting is automatically saved.

Reference Product Advisor in Playbooks

When using Product Advisor in Playbooks, you can reference it with the command "/ProductAdvisor" within your instructions. For example:

"Use /ProductAdvisor to help the customer narrow down suitable ski or snowboard options based on their needs."