By Rachel Andrew CHAPTER 11No FAQs Policy
We have always tried to avoid the frequently asked questions page, which
tends to end up being merely an expedient place to push customers to-
ward, and a way to avoid trying to solve a problem from even occurring.
The previous example of our login page is a great example of this. It
would have been really easy for us, had we had a FAQ area, to just put that
information there. However, this information is already detailed on our
website and in the post-purchase email, yet people were still missing it.
I don’t think adding it to a FAQ page would have done anything other
than providing yet another place for people to not look for the information,
so it wouldn’t have actually mitigate the real problem.
We believe that where possible the problem causing people to get in
touch with support should be fixed, or an explanation sensibly placed in
the documentation. Simply sticking things into a FAQ page is rarely the
best approach.
ToolS foR SuPPoRT
I think anyone starting a business that will require customer support should set
themselves up with a proper scalable system from the start — make it work for
having just 1 support “agent” but also make sure it will still work if you suddenly
have 10. Just pointing [email protected] to your own inbox is a bad
way to start. When that transition happens, it probably means you are growing
so there’ll be plenty of other stuff going on, so you don’t want to be dealing with
migrating helpdesk systems and changing processes at the same time.— David GossThere are a huge range of options available to help you manage customer
support requests. From simply offering support by email to SaaS helpdesk
apps, how do you choose the best method of supporting a product?