Editor's Note: This is an installment of our new series called Things Every Alexa Skill Should Do, which highlights the important features and lessons that every skill builder can use to make their skills more engaging for customers. Follow the series to learn, get inspired, and build engaging Alexa skills.

Help is often overlooked in a skill. But when done well, it is an invaluable part of the customer experience. As the skill’s creator, you often have full knowledge of what will and won’t work in your skill. But customers don’t have the same deep knowledge. They are going to ask for help from time to time. The better your help experience is, the more likely your customer will find what they are looking for.

Most help responses are static speech that gives the customer a couple of ideas to try. Great help responses consider what the customer is currently doing and what they’ve already tried, and then gives them contextual recommendations on how to continue.

Tracking your customer’s actions and responding in a way that is specific to their current state will go a long way in helping them accomplish their tasks, making your skill a reliable tool in their Alexa skill library. According to Gal Shenar, founder of Stoked Skills and creator of more than 30 published Alexa skills, an effective way to improve the overall experience is to track how each customer is doing and customize responses and reprompts to cater to their needs.

“Your goal is to make sure that everyone can understand how to interact with your skill the way you intend, without boring your top customers that don’t need additional help,” says Shenar.

For more tips on how you can contextual help to enable customers to get the most value from your skill, check out the following resources:

• Voice Design Guide: Provide Contextual Help
• How to Add Contextual Help to Your Alexa Skill
• Hear It from a Skill Builder: 4 Ways to Uplevel Your Skills for Customer Engagement

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