Answer the Right Questions: FAQ Software

What is FAQ software?

FAQ software (frequently asked questions) is a tool that enables companies to conveniently provide answers to questions that customers often ask. Providing customers with an FAQ section on a company knowledge base or help center is an integral part of a self-service strategy, allowing customer to quickly find answers to the most common questions. Companies often offer FAQs as part of a larger help center of self-service options.

Zendesk Help Center helps you keep a tally on which articles are the most visited and commented on, giving you everything you need to decide what to include in your FAQ section.

A different approach

Many customers prefer to find the answers to questions without having to actually reach out to a customer service agent. Understanding this, savvy companies build robust self-service communities or help centers that empower customers to independently find the information they need. However the flipside to a robust help center is that it contains a large amount of information, something that can be unwieldy if not organized properly.

Offering an FAQ service—populated with answers to questions companies know many customers will be seeking—and prominently displaying it will give customers what they need without adding any strain to your customer service staff or frustrating your customers to the point that they leave your site and search for answers elsewhere.

Best practices

The good news is FAQs are quite simple to put into place, and if you have a quality FAQ tool, creating one can be quite simple. There are two main ideas to keep in mind when creating content for an FAQ that will help ensure you invest in an FAQ section that actually work:
  • Know what the most frequently asked questions are. Questions from customers can come from many places: phone calls, blog comments, Twitter, live events, and more. It’s essential to regularly track these questions and understand which ones are asked the most often that can be addressed with a few sentences or even a knowledge base article. It's also very important to track the kinds of content that are being utilized by your customers when they visit your Help Center. Knowing this will help you understand what information your customers are already seeking.
  • Create content that is and actually answers the question. Once you’ve established what questions to answer in your FAQ, you have to get to the business of writing articles that solve the problem, otherwise the FAQ is pointless.
Some best practices include:
  • Develop and maintain a style guide to ensure quality and consistency.
  • Understand who the thought experts are make sure they approve of the copy.
  • Make sure articles are short and easy to read.
  • Avoid using jargon and technical terms when possible. When this is unavoidable, include definitions.

The right fit for your business

Customers will always have questions, some will be more difficult to answer than others. But all requests for support, no matter how simple, add strain to your customer service department. If customers are contacting support with the same set of simple questions over and over, it can make it that much more difficult for your support agents to focus on the complex problems. All of this can be alleviated by a high-quality FAQ section in your help center.
Camera Obscura's help center example of Zendesk's FAQ software.

How Zendesk helps

Zendesk Help Center, which makes it possible to deliver excellent self-service experiences for your customers and reduce support requests, helps you keep a tally on which articles are the most visited and commented on, giving you everything you need to decide what to include in your FAQ section. Combined with Zendesk Analytics, it’s easy to provide management with visibility into the impact of self-service on your business.

Help customers help themselves

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