In the Seinfeld episode “Opposite”, George Costanza, Jerry Seinfeld’s best friend, realizes that every decision in his life that he has made is completely wrong, and has ended up the opposite of what it should be. In order to combat this, he decides to take Jerry’s advice of doing the opposite of what he normally does. While George’s efforts to do the opposite might seem to make matters worse, such as introducing himself as, “My name is George. I’m unemployed and I live with my parents”, his efforts produce great results such as landing a date and getting himself a job.
While Seinfeld is classically seen as a show about nothing, with no intention of teaching a lesson or a moral, George’s life changing decision may change the way you look at your FAQ. Instead of updating and improving your FAQ, you should do the opposite. You should destroy it and replace it entirely.
But that’s ridiculous! Doing the opposite of what we think is right only works on television! Why should I do so, especially with my FAQ, which is supposed to help customers get the information they want?
The FAQ section has been around ever since websites were first developed. The format for this vast collection of information was essentially a long list of questions and answers. Webpages have since evolved, becoming more interactive and even personalized, based on the analytics data gathered about the site visitor. But FAQs have stayed the same, making them a user experience nightmare. Many companies are looking to change the way their customers get help and have eliminated FAQs altogether. Even the Government Digital Service, a part of the British Cabinet, does not have an FAQ section and recommends website owners against it.
However, there still needs to be a way for customers to get instant answers, that users can’t find in the content of the website. AnswerDash offers a simple solution that can flip your FAQ section and transform user experience in real-time.
Let’s compare your current FAQ and AnswerDash.
1: FAQs are a static form of interacting with consumers. AnswerDash is dynamic.
FAQs were originally created by website admins who gathered e-mails with customer questions, sorted most commonly asked questions, and then posted them on the website, so that they didn’t have to answer the same question over and over again. FAQs remain static, and are rarely updated.
AnswerDash updates questions in real-time and offers many ways for customers to find answers. Customers look at the most popular questions asked on the page that they are on, or use the object search tool to click on a section of the page and get section-specific questions. AnswerDash also gives customers the option to start a live chat or to submit their own questions if they can’t find their answers.
2: FAQs require you to stop what you are doing to find answers. AnswerDash is where you are.
In most cases, FAQs are a separate page. Because it has its own page, customers have to leave the webpage that they are on in order to get the answers that they want. Because of this, most UX design companies such as Ptype, believe that the FAQ page is an example of bad user experience – customers have to bring up multiple tabs, in order to stay on the page they want.
AnswerDash however, doesn’t have its own page that displays questions. Instead, it is in the form of a pop-up tab, that customers can click on if they need to get answers. With the tab style format, your customers don’t have to leave the page in order to find their answers.
3: FAQs are random. AnswerDash is contextual and personal.
Typically, the FAQ has questions that are put in an almost random order, with long endless lists of questions and answer pairs that all begin with intros such as “How do I…”. To a company, the list of questions may not seem random as the company knows how things are structured and how they should be ordered. But, to a customer, the questions seem randomly ordered.
AnswerDash has a predictive Q&A engine, which displays popular questions, based on a unique algorithm that analyzes user data in real-time. When a customer clicks on the AnswerDash tab, the questions there will always relate to the page that the customer is on. Answers provided are relevant and contextual.
4: FAQs are frustrating and waste time. AnswerDash is fast, instant, and frictionless.
A common format of the FAQ section is a long page. Teale Shapcott, a user experience designer believes that FAQs are ugly due to poor readability. Customers do not like scrolling through a giant page of numerous questions. As a result, the endless scrolling and the lack of context, leads to customers feeling frustrated.
AnswerDash makes for a great user experience. It saves customers from scrolling through a long page of FAQ, and prevents them from getting frustrated by giving them the answers they are looking for. TireBuyer, saw a 13% increase in revenue per visitor, after they integrated AnswerDash on their checkout page.
5: FAQs have low engagement rates. AnswerDash has 10x to 36x the engagement rate.
FAQs aren’t very engaging with the engagement rates estimated to be less than 1%. This low engagement rate could be because FAQs are actively avoided by customers, until they desperately need to get information.
AnswerDash keeps customers more engaged than a traditional FAQ. Act-On Software, improved their customer satisfaction and increased engagement by 36x by implementing AnswerDash.
It’s time to flip your FAQ
The traditional FAQ section doesn’t work anymore. No one likes the wall of text. Customers leave your site immediately if they can’t find their answers. AnswerDash can provide a solution to convert the wall into a dynamic, interactive customer experience. PipelineDeals saw a 51% decrease in customer support tickets, and PetHub, had a 25% increase in their sales conversion rate, after adopting AnswerDash.
So don’t just change the design on your FAQ page. Do the opposite. Get rid of it, and replace it with AnswerDash.
Written by Madeleine Le
References
https://gds.blog.gov.uk/2013/07/25/faqs-why-we-dont-have-them/
http://www.tealeshapcott.com/10-reasons-faqs-bad-intranets-websites/
http://www.gerrymcgovern.com/new-thinking/problems-faqs