You may be reading this post as a business owner or a brand manager, but you also regularly don the hat of a buyer of goods and a user of services. An underdeveloped–or worse a completely undeveloped–Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) webpage can be viewed as dismissive. You’re laying the onus on customers to reach out via email or fill out a comment box, at which point you or a team member will have to respond. Unless you are rather speedy about that turnaround between questions asked and responses delivered, you may have already created a negative impression of your company, not to mention of the product or service.
Photo by Laurin Steffens on Unsplash.
Before I break down the tips below, let’s get into some context. In all honesty, I searched for relevant stats to share on this post. I went through an extensive session on Perplexity AI to help cull relevant research. I came across a couple of content marketing posts on SaaS brands and other marketing agencies, all layered with questionable statistics. One particular post had a range of figures, some even hyper-linked, that shared zero context. When I clicked on each link, they either led to an irrelevant post or an SaaS.
This is why I’m going to pepper my real experience with FAQ’s as a former startup co-founder as well as what I found on various consumer product websites in the footnotes (forthcoming). Thus, take my points as more human-to-human business advice rooted in common sense.
Strip away jargon. Unless you offer a B2B product or service, your average customer will not find as much value in terms more commonly used in your field or industry. This includes anything proprietary to your company, unless they are very familiar with product/service line.
Don’t strip away context. A lot of FAQ points come across under-developed because there is a lack of background. We all appreciate conciseness, but do err on the side of over-explaining on areas that deal with how your product “should” work. This includes care and maintenance.
Revisit the FAQ on a frequent basis. This could be a quarterly exercise. You and/or your team will want to expand on the FAQ page. It will grow as your customer base grows — this is a terrific thing as it shows the robustness of your business.
Address a range of use cases. Whereas it’s understandable that you can’t account for everything, it is worthwhile to include more common use cases than you may have planned. This can help your customer feel less alone in their experience.
Consider the FAQ page as the first show of hospitality. A lot of blog posts will go into the benefits of a good FAQ for Search Engine Optimization. That is undoubtedly a point to consider. It does help your brand, but there is an even more direct benefit of the FAQ page as there might be no better element on your website to show your consideration of a customer. A well-written FAQ goes a long way in extending courtesy to your customers.