Alexa isn't responding to a question with my custom content. What can I do?
- Alexa can answer a multitude of questions, but you might wonder how some questions can get answered with your own custom content. The technology involved is called Natural Language Understanding (NLU). We train an NLU model on a large set of hospitality-related topics and the many ways that guests might ask questions about those topics. There are millions of possible combinations that result. Our system then provides logic that ties these questions to answers that you provide via your custom content. This knowledge is organized holistically into a new "skill" that augments Alexa's knowledge. Then, our collaboration with Amazon leverages a capability from them called Name Free Invocation (NFI). NFI is a gateway to the AIPEX skill, and allows your content to be a domain of knowledge for Alexa responses. When a guest asks something that the NLU engine determines is a match for one of the questions we can answer, that question is routed by NFI to our skill for fulfillment. Once the guest's question is routed to the AIPEX skill, we keep the skill session open by answering the question, and then asking "What else can I help with?" This allows guests to ask other questions without the need to re-enter the skill via NFI each time. NFI isn't perfect, and the accuracy of identifying that a question can be answered with your custom content is higher in-skill. When guests respond to the "what else can I help with" question by saying "that's all" (or similar), the skill session is closed. At that point, guests can ask non-hospitality-related questions such as "what's the weather forecast?"
- If you are asking a question that is not recognized, the reason is one of the following:
- Amazon's NFI is not routing the question to the AIPEX skill
- Your content item doesn't have a tag pertaining to the topic you are asking about
- The skill isn't trained to recognize that topic, or the particular phrasing of the question
- To figure out which one of these is happening, you can invoke the skill directly by saying "Alexa, ask our host." Then, ask the question again.
- If your custom content is delivered, then NFI was not routing correctly. Take note of the exact phrase you are using, and send it to support@aipextech.com. We will work with Amazon to train NFI to include it.
- If an answer is provided that is not your custom content but instead sounds like our best substitute answer, then it is likely that your content item needs a tag to represent the topic of your question. Go to your content item and search for a tag that fits. Then save and publish your content. Don't forget to hit the publish button, or your changes won't be active.
- If you get a response like "Unfortunately, I can't help with that," then the skill's interaction model has not been trained with either the particular phrasing of the question, or the topic, or both. Take note of the exact phrase you are using, and send it to support@aipextech.com. We will evaluate it for inclusion and training of the model.
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