Nowadays, many consumers shop online. The main reason is that purchasing goods online and having them delivered to your home is much more convenient than visiting physical stores in person. Moreover, you can buy things from all over the world, should you have the need to do so.
That’s why so many businesses have an online presence these days. However, online consumers tend to be picky. They have high expectations and they want to be well-informed before they decide to make a purchase at your online store.
That’s why they’ll undoubtedly have a lot of questions and they won’t hesitate to contact customer support to get their answers. In addition, some people aren’t as tech-savvy as you might think so they won’t be able to understand how stuff works on your website.
These people will have tons of questions as well. That being said, these questions can easily overwhelm your customer support department, especially if you have a large consumer base. That’s why you need to provide your customers with an alternative source of information.
This is where an FAQ page comes into play. An FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions) page can help customers find the information they need without them having to contact customer support. With that in mind, here are a few tips for building and optimizing your online store FAQ page.
Why is an FAQ page so important?
One of the main reasons an FAQ page on your online store is important is that consumers expect your company to disclose any relevant information that might affect their purchasing decisions. As you may already know, shopping cart abandonment in the eCommerce industry is extremely high.
As a matter of fact, around 80% of global online shopping carts were abandoned worldwide last year alone. That said, there are plenty of reasons why consumers decide not to complete their purchases. Here are a few examples.
- The discount code or coupon is not working.
- Lack of proper security on the checkout page.
- Complex checkout forms.
- Additional fees.
- No features, such as same-day or next-day shipping.
- No free shipping.
In most cases, consumers find out about certain company policies or additional fees on the checkout page, which averts them from completing the purchase. An FAQ page can sort that issue by informing customers before they reach the checkout page.
Furthermore, a lot of consumers these days prefer self-service features. They are more willing to go through your knowledge base or an FAQ page rather than contact customer support to find the information they’re looking for.
1. Use data to identify relevant questions
Building an FAQ page is not easy. The more customers you have, the more difficult it becomes to determine what questions they may have. Fortunately, an FAQ page is not there to provide answers to all the questions.
Instead, it is designed to answer the most common questions your customers may frequently ask. In most cases, these questions can vary from “How do I make a purchase?” to “Are there any additional fees associated with international shipping?”.
The best way to start is to place yourself in your customer’s shoes for a moment and ask yourself what you would like to know if you were a shopper here. However, to get more accurate information, you’ll need to use the data you have about your customers.
This is where your CRM (Customer Relationship Management) software, as well as your customer support department, can really help out.
You can pull data from your software and your employees to determine the most commonly asked questions your customers have. This will allow you to not just build an FAQ page but also categorise and organise it into topic-related segments that interest your customers the most.
2. Provide in-depth answers
Once you’ve identified the most commonly asked questions, it’s time to provide your customers with in-depth answers. The key is to be as informative and educational as possible with your answers.
Moreover, be honest and use clear sentences that your customers can easily understand. However, you don’t want your answers to be too long so you don’t overwhelm or bore your customers.
On the other hand, you don’t want your answers to be too short either so they don’t end up being less informative. You’ll have to find an ideal middle ground that works well for your customers. Once that’s done, you can actually proceed with creating an FAQ page.
When it comes to eCommerce website development, creating an FAQ page is pretty much like creating any other page on your website. You have to make sure that the page design matches the rest of your store. Furthermore, you have to ensure that the questions and answers on the FAQ page are properly organised and categorised.
3. Use internal links regularly
Optimising an FAQ page can be a challenge. You never know if the answers you’ve provided are enough to satisfy your customers’ curiosity. That’s okay because you can’t possibly hope to meet each individual customer’s needs.
Some people will be satisfied with the information, some won’t and there’s no way to control the outcome. What you can do is provide people with additional options. This is where internal links play a vital role. Optimising an FAQ page is more about helping people navigate your online store rather than optimising the page itself.
By providing customers with links to additional resources, such as product pages, demo videos, blog posts or articles and so on, you give them an option to obtain additional information should they choose or need to do so. Internal links are breadcrumbs your customers can follow to additional sources of information. They help with website navigation and they help customers find what they’re looking for.
4. Make it easily accessible
The purpose of your FAQ page is to supply customers with the information and answers they need. It’s, therefore, crucial that you make the FAQ page visible and easily accessible. Many online stores place a link to the FAQ page on the home page alone or at the footer of other web pages.
This is okay but your customers will have to look for the link every time they want to access the FAQ page. As you may already know, any friction that delays consumers from doing what they’re doing reduces the chances of conversion.
In other words, the more time your customers spend looking for a way to access the FAQ page the higher the chances that they’ll become aggravated and abandon your store for good.
To avoid such scenarios, include additional links to the FAQ page wherever it’s possible. Make sure that the links are clearly visible and clickable so that customers can redirect themselves to the FAQ page and back seamlessly.
Conclusion
Having an FAQ page on your online store is essential. The main reason is that it helps your customers find the information they need, as well as help them sort out any issues they might have without the need for contacting customer support. Building and optimising your store’s FAQ page comes down to meeting your customers’ needs and ensuring you provide them with all the relevant information.
