Your chatbot's unanswered questions are a ranked list of what customers want to know and your website doesn't say. Review them once a week: dismiss the noise, group the rest by the need behind them, add up how often each group was asked, and write answers or pages for the top one or two. Over a few weeks the list gets shorter, and your site gets better for people who never open the chat.
For why a chatbot says "I don't know" in the first place, see why your chatbot sometimes says I don't know. For deciding whether a question deserves a page, an FAQ or a policy change, see turning unanswered questions into website pages. This post is the weekly routine that feeds both.
Where the questions come from
In SpideyChat, open Answer gaps in the dashboard. Every question a chatbot handled badly is listed there with a label explaining why:
- Nothing to answer from: the knowledge base had no content for it.
- Weak match: the closest thing the bot found wasn't really about the question.
- Bot admitted it didn't know: the reply told the visitor it couldn't help.
- Marked unhelpful: the visitor gave the answer a thumbs down.
Repeats of the same wording are shown once, with a badge such as "asked 4×". Each item shows which chatbot it came from, when it was asked, and what the bot replied.
You don't have to remember to check. The weekly summary email, which is on unless you turn it off in account settings, shows how many questions are waiting and lists the ones asked most, with a link straight to Answer gaps.
The 30-minute weekly routine
Pick a fixed slot, such as the morning the summary email arrives.
1. Clear the noise (5 minutes). Dismiss test messages, spam, jokes and questions about things you'll never offer. The X button on each item is labelled "Not worth answering" and removes every copy of that question.
2. Group by need (10 minutes). Answer gaps groups identical wording only. "Do I need planning permission?", "is planning needed for a garden office" and "will the council object?" are three items but one need. Write each need on a line, with the questions under it.
3. Rank by demand (5 minutes). For each group, add up the "asked" counts. A need asked eight times across four wordings outranks a single question asked three times.
4. Decide the response for the top groups (5 minutes). For each, choose one:
- a quick answer: one to three sentences, saved straight from Answer gaps;
- a page edit: the topic exists on your site but is thin or vague;
- a new page: the honest answer needs headings, steps or options;
- a business decision: the question is really "do you offer X?", and the answer isn't yours to write until someone decides.
5. Do the top one or two (5 minutes, plus writing time). Quick answers take a minute each. Book the writing time for a page now, or it won't happen.
What each reason label tells you to write
The label is a hint about the kind of content that's missing.
| Label | What it usually means | What to write |
|---|---|---|
| Nothing to answer from | The topic isn't covered anywhere | New content, short or long |
| Weak match | A related page exists, but in other words or too briefly | A section in customers' words, or a Q&A pair |
| Bot admitted it didn't know | The topic is covered but not the specific case | The specifics: areas, sizes, exceptions |
| Marked unhelpful | An answer was given, and it didn't satisfy | Check the source for errors or vagueness first |
The last row matters most. A thumbs down on an answer the bot did give often means the content is wrong or incomplete, not missing. Open the reply shown under the question, find which page or file it came from, and fix that before writing anything new.
Turning a group into a page
When a group earns a page, the questions themselves are your outline.
- Use visitors' wording for headings. "Do I need planning permission for a garden room?" is a better heading than "Planning considerations".
- Answer in the first two sentences, then give the conditions and detail.
- Cover every question in the group, including the oddly phrased ones.
- Link to the page from the pages visitors were on when they asked, such as the service page.
- Re-crawl so the chatbot learns it. On Starter and above you can re-crawl any time; on the Free plan, paste the key facts in with Paste text or answer the gap directly.
Then test it: ask the chatbot the original questions. If the answers are right, clear the gaps. They don't close on their own when you publish content. Click "Answer this" to save a short answer as an FAQ (useful when the wording differs a lot from your page), or dismiss the item once the page covers it.
A worked example
Here's a hypothetical week for a small garden-room builder. After dismissing two test messages, the list held nine questions, which grouped into three needs:
- Planning permission: four wordings, asked 9 times in total. Decision: new page.
- What goes under the floor (foundations): two wordings, asked 3 times. Decision: page edit, adding a section to the existing build-process page.
- Paying in instalments: one wording, asked twice. Decision: business decision. The owner hadn't decided whether to offer it, so the item stayed open with a note.
That week's writing was one new page and one new section. The next summary showed the planning questions gone, which is how you know the routine works.
Measure whether it's working
Three signs, all visible without extra tools:
- The same need stops appearing. If it keeps coming back, the new content isn't being found. Check the wording and re-crawl.
- The waiting count in the weekly email falls or holds steady while conversations grow.
- Test suite questions pass. Add the top questions from each group to your chatbot's Test suite with the expected answer text, and re-run it after content changes.
If you're short of first drafts, our free AI FAQ generator can suggest a starting set of questions and answers to edit.
Answer gaps, the weekly summary and the Test suite are standard features for every chatbot. The features page shows how they fit with training, lead capture and tickets, so you can see the full loop from a visitor's question to a better answer.