The Power of FAQs

How do I return a widget? Will your business accept payment in pesos? One of the most efficient and effective ways to answer frequently asked questions like these for your customers and prospects is to compile a Frequently Asked Questions page. Through experience and research, a list of FAQs and answers anticipates the burning concerns that can stand between a sale and an abandoned shopping cart.

Here are the answers to some frequently asked questions about FAQs:

Does the FAQ page need to be in question-and-answer format? No, not necessarily. Sometimes a focused story imparts your crucial information more effectively.

For example, Hawthorne Hostel in Portland, Oregon, gives an engaging narrative of the “skinny” on general hostel customs along with specifics about its own accommodations and rules – right down to notes about the friendly house cat, Bailey.

If you need to present a lot of information on several unrelated topics, like directions to your locations in addition to details about your manufacturing process, break them up into separate groups of FAQs. Use Bank of America’s online banking homepage for small-business owners as an example. The “Frequently Asked Questions” link in the left column leads you to a page containing separate FAQs for various topics including “Account access,” “Quicken/QuickBooks,” and “Payroll services.”

You might even want to have different FAQs for customers and suppliers as well as one for your own employees that details the best practices for your business.

In any event, make all of your FAQs easy to find and simple to navigate.

What else are FAQs useful for? FAQs can also explain unusual or one-time events such as service disruptions, management changes, or acquisitions. Bank of America currently posts a special FAQ section that explains how its merger with MBNA will affect small businesses with accounts at either institution.

What should I avoid when compiling an FAQ page? “Don’t create your FAQ as a file that a prospect (or customer) has to download to read,” says marketing consultant David Coyne at Create a Website Now. “Most people won’t bother, and they’ll leave your site frustrated.”

The most effective FAQs take advantage of the web’s inherent strengths – its immediacy and ability to hyperlink.

Are EAQs and FAQs the same? No. EAQs – Easily Answered Questions – are different from FAQs. EAQs are questions that are easy for your business to answer, rather than the more difficult questions that are on customers’ minds. To avoid confusion, usability expert Caroline Jarrett suggests paying close attention to what customers, not insiders, think is important by:

• listening to help desk calls
• reviewing your site’s search logs
• reading e-mails

Think of your FAQ page as a dynamic document. Encourage user feedback, and use it not only to tweak what you’ve written to make it more useful but also to add and subtract questions and categories.

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