home> articles > FAQs Best Practices to cut Help Desk costs and increase sales.

FAQ Best Practices to cut Help Desk costs and increase sales

By Todd Follansbee September, 2009 First published in Web Marketing Today the largest, oldest internet marketing newsletter on the web - and still free.

Guidelines for assembling and displaying FAQs which take a new approach to making this information work for your entire site. Also the article on this site discusses some evolving approaches to customer built FAQs. I guarantee that this article will give you the detail you need to improve your site. If you don't agree, feel free to ask me directly and I will elaborate no charge.

FAQ pages are often an afterthought on many sites but we have used a careful approach to building them which has saved thousands of dollars both in call center salaries and by rescuing sales that would otherwise have been lost. By following the procedures in this article, you can improve your FAQs as well as your total site information architecture. You may also be surprised to discover some of the innovative emerging tools which enhance gathering and maintaining FAQs while also building stronger customer relationships.

A client approached us with ever increasing support costs and felt (rightly so) that for every customer who went to the trouble to call or email, there were many more who were leaving the site frustrated. In fact, traffic reports indicated that there were as many as 10 exits for every call. Many of those who exited had tried the FAQs before leaving, which is also common for both small and large sites. Furthermore, direct user testing indicated problems with both the FAQs and the information architecture.

Building the list of FAQs:

Customers will not order until they have sufficient information about both product and vendor. To insure that your site delivers complete product and vendor information, we built a tool called the Product/Service (and Vendor) Information Set*. Simply put, it is the full set of questions a customer might have about your product/service and your company. To build the information sets, we start by brainstorming as expansive a list as possible of the customer questions i.e.,: what does it cost, what does it look like, can I return it, where is the company located, what is it made of, etc. Next, we added the questions we gathered from: email, phone, and live chat inquiries.

You will use this list of customer questions to build your FAQ page but you will also use it to review your site with the goal of improving your page content by answering as many of these questions in the appropriate page locations as possible.

Building and Testing solutions.

Next, script responses to each question and whenever possible, test these scripted responses on customers via phone and email. The goal is to insure that the scripts fully answer each question so note any follow up questions and revise the scripts accordingly. Specifically ask customers if they were happy with the answers and solicit suggestions about better possible responses. The revised scripts will be used on the FAQ page and you may find them helpful on site pages as well.

Organizing the FAQ page

If you have more then 20 FAQs you will need to organize the information into a logical hierarchy. With a small list, you might base the order on how frequently they are asked but with a long list, FAQs are often categorized by topics such as: Tech Support, General Product info, Vendor, Policies etc. You may find this a sensible place to begin. Don't hesitate to put a question in more then one category if appropriate.

FAQ Page Guidelines:

• List the questions at the top of the page being sure to follow the conventions used throughout your site to indicate that the questions are hyperlinks. (blue underline is one obvious choice)
• The FAQ list should be easy to scan. Insure the font is large enough to easily read, and that there is sufficient spacing and white space.
• Consider bolding keywords and keeping them close to the beginning of the question.
• Keeps the FAQs short.
• You may choose to hyperlink the questions to the answer below, making sure to repeat the question before giving the answer and include a “back to the top” hyperlink.
• Another approach is to “accordion” the hidden answer so that when you click on the hyperlink, the answer appears immediately below the Question. This allows you to keep the other FAQs in view unless your answer runs to more then a couple of paragraphs.
• Ensure that the FAQ page includes full contact information, an easy form to email questions and, a “live Chat” box if you have one.
• Encourage visitors to submit any additional questions that come to mind.
• Include links to additional site resources such as: white papers, videos, product updates etc.
• If you site is loaded with acronyms or technical jargon, we hope you followed UX guidelines for their use in the site, but nevertheless, consider adding a “glossary” page, organized alphabetically.

Advanced FAQ Tools:

If your FAQs begin to get unwieldy, consider using multiple pages. Include a “search FAQs” box (large enough to include a phrase) and record the search phrases in a log. Review the search phrases and test the results, are they finding appropriate answers? If not, map keywords to relevant answers i.e. if visitors enter the search phrase: “can I return it”, insure that the words: exchange, replace, send back , all map to the same answer.

Review traffic reports to identify the pages your customers leave when they come to the FAQ page. Armed with this information, you will likely revise product information on your site. If for example analytics show that several people come from a product details or product overview page and question a returns policy, it is safe to assume that the returns policy information on your pages is being overlooked. Similarly, if you find numerous vendor related questions coming from a products page, you may infer that you have not built sufficient vendor credibility in the sales path.

Emerging FAQ Tools

One company (collab.net) uses a system where visitors are encouraged to make FAQ entries and all incoming help requests (and answers) get included in the FAQ section. They even encourage visitors to revise existing answers. A company employee reviews the responses and updates the appropriate FAQ promptly. They also have a traffic reporting tool which allows them to see which questions get clicked on the most. This information helps them revise web content to reduce the need for customer to resort to FAQs. Also their product pages offer FAQ links which deliver a dynamic FAQ page focused on that particular products FAQs. This approach is still in beta development but it represents an innovative way to turn the FAQ into a more positive and powerful tool to aid web development.

Final Steps:

We cut down call center costs by having personnel gently suggest; in as nice a way as possible that call in customers may find answers on the site. They were instructed to say: “Thanks for calling, we are open 9-5 EST and we welcome your call but if a question comes up after hours you may find the answer on our FAQ page, I'll be happy to email you the link if you wish.”

By monitoring your incoming questions and checking which FAQs are either searched for or clicked on the most, you get valuable information to improve your Product/Service and Vendor Information Set and ultimately your web site. If customers are jumping from a “product overview” page to inquire about information which appears later in the sales path on your “product details” page, you may decide to offer the information earlier in the path, possibly even on the home page. You may even find that people are frequently searching for a product or feature which you don't yet offer but might add to your product or service mix.

Regular readers will know to expect that I advocate user testing at every opportunity and FAQs are no exception. By testing your responses and using the information to improve both your FAQs and your site, you should see the character and frequency of the questions change over time. If you have addressed the returns policy with tested scripts in both the FAQs and the product pages, the frequency of “returns questions” should drop. Listen to your intuition as you monitor incoming customer questions. If you have built the “information sets” and reviewed your site to make sure it is well placed yet you still receive a number of vendor or credibility type questions, consider revising the About Us, Testimonials, and/or the trust icons on your site. Maybe the site lacks a professional look and feel or the cart process appears insecure. Until you have established vendor credibility with your customer, you won't get a sale. Direct user testing would reveal these site shortcomings immediately but these procedures can offer good insights in the interim.

Many visitors are comforted just seeing a nav link for FAQs. In a perfect world, the sites information architecture should answer all questions right when they arise. Until you discover that world, use the FAQ page to improve your information architecture, build customer relations, improve sales and cut support costs, hopefully the guidelines will help you as they have helped others.

*Note a detailed Product/Service information set also ranks each question's importance i.e., Crucial, helpful, limited. It also defines page placement in the site information architecture, and in our most sophisticated examples, takes into account customer learning style and personality profile.

If you have further questions on FAQs, feel free to query me by phone or email. All reasonable questions are answered within one business day at no charge.

If you want to watch a short video of a usability test please visit the download page.

services | facilities | testimonials | resources | site map | about us | glossary | How to articles | One hour site review
© 2008 Web Marketing Resources LLC  Norwalk, CT & West Tisbury MA