Why You Need Contextual FAQs

Pete Grigg | April 1, 2014

I often hear people talking about how everything seems to move so quickly nowadays. It seems that this has also led us to an overall lessoning of patience. People want things now and they don’t want to have to spend their time searching for it.

Self-service customer service options should be on website. Solid FAQs about the way you do business. Then contact for further #custserv

— Marsha Collier (@MarshaCollier) April 2, 2014

It’s a New Age

How many of you have gone past page 2 search results in Google lately? Personally, it’s pretty rare for me to even go past the first page. If Google doesn’t place it front and center on page 1, I assume it either doesn’t exist or my search term was bad.

That kind of instant feedback has wormed its way so far down into our sub-conscious that we don’t even realize how much it has affected us. We are no longer impressed by this type of functionality and have moved firmly onto expecting it.

@MarshaCollier Must be more than FAQs Marsha. Customers want contextual knowledge #custserv

— James Norwood (@jlnorwood) April 2, 2014

Digital Laziness

I, for one, have caught myself slipping into digital laziness on several occasions. A recent example would be when I was trying to figure out someone else’s API using their documentation. Not finding what I was looking for immediately, I had to fight the urge to just give up. In this case I couldn’t because it was necessary for my job, but it definitely got me to thinking. When people give up for whatever reason, companies lose money.

@MarshaCollier @jlnorwood Agree. That is a pet peeve for me. If it's hard to find your contact info you won't get my business #custserv

— Holly Chessman (@HollyChessman) April 2, 2014

Put the Right Help Where They Can’t Miss It

A good FAQ page can really help to answer your customer’s questions without the need for them to contact you. Getting them to actually spend the time to browse your FAQ page for their question though, can be a big challenge.

@MarshaCollier They are, but for those who live & die via their online presence an FAQ just won’t cut it #custserv

— James Norwood (@jlnorwood) April 2, 2014

This is where contextual FAQs come into play. If your customer was just looking at your online checkout page before they went to your FAQ, chances are they have a question about shipping, or payment options, or something else related to that previous page. Place all of the content that you think could be related to their last page front and center. Make it so obvious and easy that even the laziest of us will be able to find what we are looking for.

@MarshaCollier @jlnorwood real faqs are updated with contextual info that is born of real #custserv situations not marketing dribble

— ATambo (@ANTambo) April 2, 2014

How We Do It

At HelpGizmo, we’ve gone one step further. With our embeddable widget, self-service is just a click away on every page of an application. Because it is embedded on the page itself, users don’t have to navigate away from where they were so they won’t lose context. By recording user interaction with the widget, we can learn from the users themselves what content is the most applicable. The most popular or most viewed articles will bubble to the top of the list automatically.

No matter what tool or method you choose to use, I strongly suggest making your FAQ page content contextual. Unless I’m mistaken, I don’t think our patience is going to be recovering any time soon.

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