Featured
Guides8 min read
How to make your website ready for AI chatbots and AI search
Six steps, in order, to let AI assistants, search engines and support chatbots read your site: crawler access, sitemaps, page text, schema and llms.txt.
The Paperlink AI blog
Notes on honest support automation.
Field notes on help centers, answers from your own docs, and AI that says "I don't know" instead of making things up.
Latest articles
28 articles
Guides7 min read
How to prepare documents for an AI chatbot knowledge base
A seven-step guide to cleaning up PDFs, Word files and help articles so an AI chatbot finds the right passage and answers correctly.
Support AI7 min read
Customer service replies: templates and when to automate them
Four levels of reply automation, a three-question rule for choosing one, and five templates for the replies a person should still write.
Guides7 min read
Customer support metrics that matter: NPS, CSAT, CES, FRT and AHT
What NPS, CSAT, CES, first response time and average handle time each measure, how to report them honestly, and how they fit in one monthly report.
Guides6 min read
What is llms.txt and do you need one?
llms.txt is a proposed Markdown map of your site for AI tools. What it is, who reads it, what it does not do, and which sites should publish one.
Guides6 min read
Should you block GPTBot? What blocking AI crawlers really does
GPTBot is only one of several AI crawlers. What blocking training, search and user crawlers each does, what it does not do, and how to choose.
Support AI6 min read
ChatGPT for customer service: what works, what fails, and the safer option
Where ChatGPT helps a support team, where it fails with customers, and how a chatbot limited to your own content compares. With a side-by-side table.
Guides5 min read
AI chatbot for ecommerce customer support
Which store questions an AI chatbot should answer from your policies (shipping, returns, products) and which must go to a person, such as payments.
Support AI6 min read
What an AI help desk is (and isn't)
Help desk software, AI features inside a help desk, and a support chatbot on your website do different jobs. How to tell them apart and pick one.
Guides5 min read
AI chatbot for real estate websites
What a real estate chatbot should answer, what to load (FAQs, buying and renting guides, fee schedules), fair-housing-safe rules and handoff to an agent.
Guides6 min read
How to calculate NPS (and what a good score is)
Calculate Net Promoter Score, then make it worth reporting: survey design, when to send it, following up with detractors and comparing with yourself.
Guides6 min read
How support teams handle holiday and after-hours coverage
Choose a coverage model, define what is urgent, tell customers before they write and plan the backlog for the first day back, with the math shown.
Guides7 min read
How to write support SOPs your team will follow
Choose which support SOPs to write first, get the real steps from the people who do the work, write decisions as tables and test each draft.
Guides7 min read
Sitemap mistakes that hide pages from search and AI crawlers
Seven sitemap mistakes that pass validation but hide pages from crawlers and support chatbots, and a three-list audit that finds them.
Guides7 min read
How to respond to negative reviews (with examples)
Eight hard negative reviews, from a named employee to a safety report, each with an example reply, why it works and what to do after you post it.
Guides6 min read
How many support agents do you need? Erlang C explained
Build a staffing plan for a whole day with Erlang C: contacts per hour, agents by hour, shrinkage, shifts, pooled queues and fewer contacts, all worked out.
Guides6 min read
Structured data for help centers: which schema goes where
Which schema.org type fits each help center page, how to put the markup in your article template, honest dates, forum threads and checking it all.
Guides6 min read
How to write help articles customers understand
Put the question in the title and the answer first, place conditions before steps, use one word for each thing, and test articles with a real reader.
Guides6 min read
How support teams can measure customer churn
Measure customer and revenue churn, split it by support experience and tenure, avoid small-group noise and put a value on the gap, with worked math.
Guides8 min read
What gets lost when you turn a web page into text for AI
One page converted to clean text, line by line: what AI tools keep, what they drop, and how to write pages so rules and contact details survive.
Guides6 min read
How to audit what your website tells visitors
Summarize the pages customers rely on, build a fact table and find the gaps, conflicts and buried facts before customers and AI tools find them.
Guides7 min read
How to write a support tone guide (with before and after examples)
Four rules, a phrase table and seven before and after replies, from saying no to a refund to closing a ticket, to build a tone guide your team uses.
Guides6 min read
What an uptime percentage means in minutes of downtime
Uptime targets as minutes per day, week, month and year, how fast one incident uses the budget, and what the minutes mean for your support team.
Guides6 min read
CSAT vs CES vs NPS: which survey to send, and when
What CSAT, CES and NPS each measure, which moment fits each survey, how to read them together, and a worked example where CSAT hides a problem.
Guides5 min read
How to turn your help center into an AI chatbot
A step-by-step guide to turning a public help center or docs site into an AI chatbot that answers visitors from your own pages and stays current.
Support AI4 min read
How to stop an AI chatbot from making up answers
Why AI chatbots invent answers, and the five controls that stop it: grounded answers, refusals, sources your team can check, conflict rules and gap reports.
Guides4 min read
How to choose an AI chatbot for customer support: a checklist
Twelve questions to ask any AI chatbot vendor before you put a bot in front of your customers, covering accuracy, sources, freshness, privacy and price.
Guides4 min read
AI chatbot vs FAQ page vs site search: which does your website need?
An honest comparison of three ways to answer visitor questions on a website, with a table, the cost of each and when to use them together.
Newsletter
Support notes, once a month.
One email with what we learn about help centers, honest AI answers and support teams. Unsubscribe at any time.