Q&A Component Overview | Yext Hitchhikers Platform

What You’ll Learn

In this section, you will learn:

• What is a Q&A Module
• How an Admin can use Q&A to inform content

What is a Q&A Component

The Q&A Component is a form that appears at the bottom of the Universal or Vertical search page (as defined by an Admin), and allows a user to submit a question, along with their name and email. The component is part of the Search SDK and must be added explicitly to an experience to appear.

As part of the user journey of Search, we want to make sure consumers get answers to the question – even if it’s not in the search experience yet! Users can submit a question and a brand can reply directly to that user – and also update their Knowledge Graph or Search Configuration to make sure the next user can find the answer easily on their own.

How does it work? When the component is added to the experience, it will by default (via the Theme) appear below the search results. The idea is that if a user is scrolling through and doesn’t find their answer, they can submit it at the bottom. The component will automatically populate the user’s query into the “Question” section of the module, allowing a user to quickly submit their question. There are three other fields that the user will then fill out:

• Name (required)
• Email (required)
• Contact Consent (require check-box)

The purpose of the Q&A component is to allow users to submit specific inquiries or questions directly to the business:

The Q&A inputs will flow into the Reviews > Q&A within the platform, creating an instance of first party Q&A within Yext. (Why in the Reviews you might ask? Q&A is a feature that is also used with our Third Party integrations, like Google. The screen contains questions asked on both Third Party platforms and First Party platforms, like Search.)

The Q&A screen allows you to quickly see an overview of count of total questions and count of total questions needing a response. To reiterate, all of the inquiries will flow into the Yext platform:

The brand can answer questions via the platform as seen above. The answer is sent to the end user’s email (inputted when they submitted the question). This also provides a great source for adding more FAQs or other entities to your Knowledge Graph to help answer common questions for your customers.

How an Admin can use the Q&A to inform content

Before implementing the Q&A Component, an Admin should always get sign off from the brand or organization. The brand itself will be the one to monitor and respond to the questions, not the Admin. Therefore, it’s best to make sure the brand has resources dedicated and staffed for Q&A monitoring and response within the Yext platform. It is possible the brand is already monitoring Q&A already with Reviews, within its tech stack, or on Google, so ideally the Q&A project is within the scope of a dedicated brand team. An Admin would not want to implement the Q&A component without getting sign off or staffing resources allocated from the brand. If the Q&A component is implemented but not monitored by the brand, it would create a bad user experience where a user’s question might go unanswered and s/he could therefore feel ignored.

Once implemented, the brand can be directed to the Reviews > Q&A tab within the platform to monitor and respond to incoming questions. As you can imagine (put your Admin thinking cap on!), this screen in the platform will be a great source of incoming questions about the brand. An Admin should always be monitoring the Q&A screen in order to 1) understand what questions are coming in and to help strategize with the brand on Knowledge Graph expansion and to 2) nudge the brand to make sure all questions are being monitored and answered.