5 Quick Fixes for a Better FAQ Page

Done right, the FAQ page on your business website converts users and saves you tons of time.  Without making a phone call or waiting on an email inquiry, prospects get all the answers and assurance they’re looking for to make the next step with your company. Understand the potential here? As Kissmetrics contributor Jason Shah says:

“Your FAQ page represents one of the most valuable moments in a conversion funnel. Nowhere else does a visitor so deliberately indicate that they want to know the details of your product or service.”

They want the scoop – so give it to them!  Take advantage of your visitors’ interest in your products or services with an FAQ page that provides the information they actually want (no promotional nattering or phony questions).

But we’re getting ahead of ourselves here. Take a look at our quick fixes for a better FAQ page.  A little bit of FAQ page upkeep goes a long way for more online leads.

1. Put the FAQ page on your main navigation bar

Users who seek out the FAQ page on a website want answers, fast. Put your FAQ page on your main navigation bar to ensure that they find it as soon as they hit the home page.

As Noupe.com contributor Cameron Chapman says, “What’s the point of having an FAQ section if your visitors can’t find it?” At this point in the conversion funnel, your visitors aren’t hunting around – they’re clicking back to a competing company for the answers they’re looking for.

2. Answer real customer questions

The FAQ page is “designed to relieve the requirements of online customer support,” as Todaymade.com contributor Garrett Moon says.  So unless your customers actually call or email with cheese ball “questions” that let you wax poetic about the wonders of your products or services as if you’re live in the studio for an infomercial slot, do some research. It won’t take long, we promise.

Research your customers’ real questions by recording, tracking, and analyzing their telephone and email queries. If you have a customer service team, this is where they come in very handy for insight and feedback.  Use this information to inform your customer-centric FAQ page questions.

Resist the temptation to list the questions you wish your users would ask. You know, the “But wait! There’s more!” sleaze that excuses you to blab on and on about how great your stuff is.  This wastes your visitors’ time, and defeats the purpose of the page.

And it also makes you sound like a big fat phony.

3. Keep it organized and categorized

Depending on your products or services, you might want to sub-section your questions by category to keep things organized and easy to find.

Let’s say you sell a range of organic loose-leaf teas online. Customers call to ask all kinds of questions – how to store and prepare the teas, where the teas are sourced, which ones are caffeinated – enough questions to justify a couple headlined categories on your FAQ page:

• “Our Teas”
• “Preparing and Storing Our Teas”
• “Purchasing Our Teas”

With your questions sub-categorized, customers can go directly to the information they need, without wasting time scrolling and searching through a single, dense list of various queries.

4. Provide support for new questions

You’re a business owner, not a psychic. Once in a while, your well-researched FAQ section won’t provide the exact answer your visitor is looking for.

Prepare for those times by including a question or contact form that’s easily accessible from your FAQ page.

Remember, you want to offer as much support as possible, no matter where the visitor is coming from in the sales funnel. As Michele McGovern from Customer Experience Insight reports, “more than 60% of customers said the companies they trust the most are the ones that provide them with information and tools to continue to use the product they bought over the long haul.”  The FAQ section is your opportunity to set yourself apart from your competitors for service assistance they can trust.

5. Plain language, please!

For the quick answers your customers need to help make a decision, clear communication wins.  As you might already know, we’re big fans of explaining things in plain language. It’s an effective way to connect your content to as large and diverse an audience as possible.

Throw out your technical jargon and long-winded explanations of every excruciating detail. It’s nice to be thorough, but it’s painful to jam-pack an explanation with heavy content that has no immediately recognizable relevance to your user.  If you keep it concise (read: brief) and customer-focused, it will be easy to avoid sounding like a warbling robot.

Include the definitions of the technical/industry-specific words that you absolutely can’t leave out.  Use bullet points to:

• Break up big ideas or concepts.
• List features or steps in a process.

What’s the next step?

1. Tinker around on your business website’s FAQ page to determine what changes you can make for more conversions and increased customer trust.

2. Talk to us to make those changes happen!

References
Chapman, Cameron. “FAQ Pages: Best Practices and Examples.” 24 June 2010. Noupe.com
McGovern, Michelle. “Top reasons customers don’t trust you.” 1 March 2013. CustomerExperienceInsight.com
Moon, Garrett. “10 Tips for Creating a Killer FAQ Page.” Todaymade.com
Shah, Jason. “Get Your FAQs Straight: Convert Your Curious Customers.” Blog.Kissmetrics.com