Does your organization use FAQs to reduce customer service costs? Or, maybe, are your FAQs are designed to be used in marketing and sales?

More often than not, it’s the former, and for some very practical reasons. FAQs are a cheap way to improve customer service, reduce the cost of customer service infrastructure, and build a self-service mindset.

Unfortunately, if looked at through this lens, the opportunity to use FAQs for marketing and sales gets missed. And this is often entrenched, as responsibility for FAQ content usually rests with the service part of the organization, not sales or marketing. (It should be collaborative.)

The first key to flipping the FAQ into an inbound marketing tool is to consider each individual question as a problem that a prospect needs to solve, or a barrier to purchasing. Solving the problem and removing the barrier will result in a lead.

The second key to flipping the FAQ is to consider what the prospect will do after you solve their problem. They will either have another question (“problem”) that needs solving, or they may wish to move to the next step on their purchase journey. Both of these can be addressed on the FAQ page.

Here’s a blueprint, in 12 specific steps:

1. Make sure your FAQs are ACTUALLY frequently asked – speak with your team to figure out what the questions currently are.
2. Put each FAQ on a page of its own, and ensure it is SEO-optimized. This will expose “the problem” to a wider number of prospects.
3. Have a table of contents with anchor links to each answer.
4. On each FAQ, use video as well as text, which you can also share on YouTube and Facebook, further widening the number of prospects who see it.
5. Ideally, the FAQs should be written at no higher than a grade 5 reading level: writing in simpler language makes it easier to scan… and not everyone is fluent in English. (If they don’t understand the answer, either a sales opportunity is lost, or they’ll use a more costly customer service channel.)
6. At the end of each FAQ, curate a list of other questions, just in case they have other problems they need solving.
7. Use live chat functionality to directly ask if the FAQ answered their question, and begin a one-to-one conversation.
8. Use a form to directly capture leads (eg. interested in learning more / speaking to one of our team /ready to start / ready to buy)
9. Review your direct competitors: How are they using their FAQs?
10. Every quarter, review the performance of the FAQ section: Views for each question clicks to other questions, chat interactions, and form submissions. Based on your findings, feed this back into your other marketing and sales processes. For example, if many people are looking at a particular question, perhaps it isn’t adequately explained during an earlier touchpoint.
11. Don’t forget where a person may be in their “journey”. This may mean actually having three FAQs: one for prospects, one for onboarding, and one for customers
12. Consider whether the FAQ for customers is primarily accessed through a generic support area, or whether the FAQ appears directly within their portal.

Does this topic resonate? Reach out to Randall: he can present it to your group.  (More presentation topics)
Download Randall’s professional credentials: Speaker credentials one-sheet or Management Advisory credentials.

Content Authenticity Statement: 100% original content: no AI was used in creating this content.

@RandallCraig (Follow me for daily insights)
www.RandallCraig.com: Professional credentials site.