Refinements — override AI answers with exact responses

What are Refinements?

Refinements are question-and-answer pairs you write yourself. When a visitor asks one of your questions, the chatbot gives your answer instead of writing its own from your knowledge. They're useful when you need a word-for-word answer for certain questions, such as your licence number, guarantee policy or cancellation terms.

Without refinements, the chatbot puts answers in its own words from your knowledge, so the wording can vary. With refinements, you choose the wording.

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How refinements are matched

A refinement you add on the Refinements page is matched to similar questions. Your question and answer are given to the chatbot with the instruction to use your answer word for word when a visitor asks something similar. The visitor doesn't have to type your question exactly: "How much notice do I need to cancel?" can match a refinement for "Can I cancel a booking?".

Some refinements are set up as exact-match refinements. An exact-match refinement is used only when the visitor's message is the same as its question, ignoring capital letters and spaces at the start and end. Punctuation and every word still have to match. When it matches, the chatbot gives that answer and nothing else.

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What to use refinements for

Use refinements for wording that must be exact and rarely changes:

• legal or compliance wording that must not be paraphrased
• the exact terms of a policy, such as how much notice you need to cancel a booking
• factual answers with one correct answer: "Are you licensed?", "What's your ABN?", "Do you have a guarantee?"

Don't use them for prices, or for anything else that is already on your website. Let your chatbot answer those from your knowledge, with Auto-retrain turned on for your website source, or set prices in Pricing & Quotes (see Service pricing). A refinement for a price keeps giving that price after your website changes, so every price change would mean changing the refinement too.

Refinements and auto-retrain

A retrain updates your knowledge, never your refinements. When a visitor's question matches a refinement, the chatbot is told to give your refinement's answer, even if a source retrained this morning says something newer. If your chatbot gives an old answer after a retrain, check Refinements for a matching question first. See Keep your chatbot up to date.

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Adding a refinement

1. Go to Refinements in the dashboard and pick the chatbot, if you have more than one.
2. Under Add a refinement, enter the Question. Write it the way a visitor would ask it. A question can be up to 500 characters.
3. Enter the Answer: exactly what you want the chatbot to say. An answer can be up to 4,000 characters.
4. Click Save Refinement.

A refinement you add here is in use straight away. Ask the question in Test to check it.

Save a good reply from Conversations

When your chatbot gives a reply you'd like it to give every time, click Save as refinement under that reply in Conversations. Pivra saves a draft: the visitor's question just before that reply becomes the question, and the reply becomes the answer. Only your chatbot's own replies can be saved, not replies from your team.

A draft is not in use. Your chatbot doesn't give that answer until you check it and turn it on (see below).

Tips for writing good questions

• Think about how visitors actually phrase things, not how you'd write a FAQ.
• Keep one topic per refinement. A question that covers several topics can match questions you didn't mean it to.

Tips for writing good answers

• Write in first person as the business: "Yes, we're fully licensed — Lic. No. L000000"
• Keep it concise — 1–3 sentences is ideal for chat
• Include a call-to-action if relevant: "Call us on 0491 570 156 to book"

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Managing refinements

Under Your refinements, the list is split in two:

• Not in use: drafts saved from Conversations and refinements you've turned off. Your chatbot doesn't use these. Drafts and refinements you've turned off are marked Off.
• In use: refinements your chatbot answers from.

Click a refinement to see its answer and these buttons:

• Edit lets you change the question and answer. Click Save to keep your changes. For a refinement that's not in use, Save and turn on saves it and puts it in use in one step.
• Turn on puts a refinement in use. A refinement needs a question and an answer before it can be turned on.
• Turn off stops your chatbot using it without deleting it. It moves to Not in use.
• Delete removes it after you confirm. This can't be undone.

When you edit a refinement that's in use, it stays in use with the new wording. When you turn one off or delete it, your chatbot goes back to answering that question from its knowledge.

A refinement marked Exact is an exact-match refinement (see "How refinements are matched" above).

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Example refinements for a plumbing business

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Frequently asked questions

How is this different from the knowledge base? Your knowledge (the Knowledge page) is trained on your website, documents and text. The chatbot finds the relevant parts and puts the answer in its own words. A refinement gives your own answer for a specific question instead, like a pinned answer.

What if both a refinement and my knowledge match? The chatbot is told to give your refinement's answer word for word. An exact-match refinement that matches is the only thing the chatbot answers from.

How many refinements can I add? Your chatbot uses up to 50 refinements that are in use. Keep them focused on the questions that matter most.

Can I import refinements in bulk? Not yet. Add them one at a time on the Refinements page, or save good replies from Conversations as drafts.