Knowledge Base

Think of the knowledge base as your business FAQ - but written for the AI instead of a website. Each entry has two parts:

• Topic- the question or subject (e.g., "What are your hours?")
• Content- the full answer you'd give a customer (e.g., "We're open Monday through Friday, 9am–6pm, and Saturday 10am–4pm. We're closed on Sundays.")

When a customer texts a question, Mahana searches your knowledge base to find the best match and uses the content you wrote to compose a reply. The AI doesn't guess or make things up - it works from what you've told it.

Adding a new entry takes less than a minute:

1. Go to Knowledge Base in your dashboard.
2. Click Add entry.
3. Enter a clear topic and a complete answer.
4. Click Save. The entry is active immediately.

You can add entries up to your plan's character limit, and you can edit or delete them at any time.

The quality of your entries matters more than the quantity. Here are the best practices that make the biggest difference:

Be specific with topics

Write topics as questions, the way a customer would actually ask them. "What are your hours?" gives the AI much more context to work with than "Hours."

Write complete answers

Include every detail a customer would need. If you're answering a question about your prices, list the actual prices. Don't say "it depends" - explain what it depends on.

One topic per entry

Don't combine unrelated information into one entry. Keep hours in one entry, prices in another, and location in a third. This helps the AI find the right answer faster.

Write the way you talk to customers

The AI uses your content to craft its replies, so write in a friendly, natural tone. A conversational answer will produce a more natural-sounding response than a bullet-pointed internal document.

Include specific details

Prices, hours, addresses, phone numbers, parking info - anything a customer might need to know. Specific details are what turn a generic reply into a genuinely helpful one.

The difference between a useful knowledge base entry and a useless one usually comes down to specificity. Here are a few examples:

You can turn any entry on or off without deleting it. This is useful for information that changes with the season or time of year.

Some examples of when this comes in handy:

• Holiday hours- Activate a "Holiday hours" entry in December, then deactivate it in January without losing the content.
• Seasonal services or specials - Activate a summer special or back-to-school promotion for a few weeks, then switch it off when it ends.
• Temporary changes - If you're closed for a week or running reduced hours, add a temporary entry, activate it, and deactivate it when things are back to normal.

To toggle an entry, find it in your Knowledge Base list and use the active/inactive toggle next to it. Only active entries are used by the AI.

The total characters across all your knowledge base entries depends on your plan:

• Starter - up to 8,000 characters
• Standard - up to 20,000 characters
• Growth - up to 30,000 characters
• Pro - up to 40,000 characters

For most businesses, 8,000 characters of well-written entries is more than enough to cover the questions that come up most often. If you find yourself needing more, it's easy to upgrade at any time.

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