Answer common questions from applicants, volunteers and partners on the CYF website

[alecmccrindle]

Most likely via a chatbot.

[alecmccrindle]

@SallyMcGrath - I'd like to make a rough version on this before the next round of applicants - probably due in August 2023. Should I make a v01 on my own using Zendesk, or, is there a joined up way to do it from the start.

[alecmccrindle]

@kfklein15 - given Zendesk is not a coded product, I had planned to make v01 on my own. But happy to discuss other options.

[SallyMcGrath]

Can you fill in the proposal lines? There's no context here at all. TY!

[alecmccrindle]

I want to do this:

I want a way to common questions from applicants, volunteers and partners from the CYF website.

Here's why I want to do it:

We should save time in the long term. Currently, we receive a lot of similar questions via the contact email address. The CEO, The Director of Digital and the Head of Community Building currently respond to these emails. If we had a bot that could answer most questions and drive folks to take the right actions for their requirements, that would save us time.

Here's how it serves our goals:

By answering their questions earlier, we may improve our conversion rates from potential trainees, volunteers and partners. Reports show a 60% increase in sales in commercial environments.

This is how much time I can put towards this change:

• I can spend as many hours as is needed to mine our contact email address or other channels for commonly asked questions or devote the time needed to brief a contractor to do this for us.
• I can write and send surveys asking our community if needed

This is the help I need from others to get this done (if any):

• Technical advice on any solution outside of Zendesk, our current solution - specifically, if it's sensible to join up any chatbot creation endeavours across CYF technically
• Engineering resources, if there are good reasons to add a pre-sales chatbot to any other chatbot builds happening at CYF, by an engineering team

[alecmccrindle]

The main question on a chatbot for now is should we pay someone to help us make one in Zendesk, or, is there something we can build. When I mean we, I mean the CYF community. And when I mean the CYF community, who do I ask to scope it out with me? @kfklein15, @SallyMcGrath, a channel of volunteers in Slack or an external engineer? I know a lot of engineers so I can start there?