It’s no secret that the best companies put their customers first.
95% of consumers believe that a good customer experience is important to brand loyalty. Providing a top-notch customer experience can be expensive, time-consuming, and complicated to put into practice.
Sure there are chatbots, support lines, and customer reviews to help shoppers on their path to purchase, but there’s one forgotten customer service tactic that is cost-effective and streamlined. That tactic is an FAQ page.
What is a FAQ page?
FAQ stands for “Frequently Asked Questions.” An FAQ is a list of commonly asked questions and answers on a website about topics such as hours, shipping and handling, product information, and return policies.
FAQ pages went out of style for a bit because companies viewed them as outdated and unattractive forms of communication. Now they are on most websites because they save time for both the customer and employees. It’s easy to get carried away with the design and content within the FAQ page. In this guide, you’ll learn all there is to know about crafting an effective FAQ page. Plus, get inspired with 30 best-in-class examples.
An FAQ page is a time-saving customer service tactic that provides the most commonly asked questions and answers for current or potential customers.
Before diving into how to make an FAQ page, you need to know why having one is so important. There are so many reasons beyond improving the customer experience for perfecting your FAQ page. Keep in mind the importance of an FAQ page when developing your own e-commerce website so you can make sure it increases sales and not the other way around.
Saves time
This reason might be the most obvious, but it’s a clear benefit of an FAQ page. Not only does the FAQ page save customers time, it saves employees time as well. Having an FAQ page ensures customers don’t have to sit on the phone for hours waiting for simple answers and employees don’t have to individually answer all questions.
Companies dedicate a large portion of their budgets to customer service teams. When these teams don’t have to focus on answering the frequently asked questions, they can service other customer issues in a more timely manner.
Earns trust
Information is available at the click of a button, but as we all know, information is not always true. Because of this, customers are more skeptical than ever before. They hunt for products by sifting through reviews, looking at the product on multiple websites, and price checking across the internet.
If your brand seems to understand the customer’s pain point and address it through a seamless user experience, the shopper will become a loyal customer.
One of the most common pain points is when shoppers are wondering something about a product or service and there’s no information addressing that question. The customers think to themselves, “I can’t be the only person who’s wondering this,” yet the answer is nowhere to be found. This is a surefire way to guarantee they close the window and go to your competitor’s website.
By creating a comprehensive FAQ page you can assure customers get the answer they need and keep shopping on your site.
Provides new insights
It’s difficult to get into the head of a shopper. Some buy on impulse and others buy after thorough research. By tracking the clicks on your FAQ page you can gather insights about your product or service that you didn’t know before. You can then inform your product team of these insights. From there, the product team can make changes to improve the product or experience.
For example, if a dog collar company’s most clicked on FAQ is, “how do I make sure my dog doesn’t slip out of the collar?” you’ll know that people are having issues or concerns about the collar staying on. The product team then might have to create a no-slip feature to ease this fear among potential customers.
Drives internal page views
If you want your FAQ to be extremely thorough, which it should be, you can link to resources within your FAQ for your customers to find out more information. Whether you link to a blog that goes into more detail or a product page, this content helps the shoppers get the full story before making a purchase.
Having all of these resources also shows that you care about your customers’ happiness, and it will make them stay on pages longer and explore other pages that they may have missed otherwise.
Prevents negative reviews
When looking through negative reviews, there’s almost always one thing in common— the problem could’ve been avoided.
For example, there’s always anger and confusion around e-commerce return policies. These issues are easily avoidable with a comprehensive section about questions relating to returns on an FAQ page. Instead of directing people to a support line, direct them to the FAQs. They’ll be happy to find an answer and avoid the phone call.
FAQs are good for SEO
In order to take full advantage of your FAQ page’s ability to improve website SEO, create one page with all of the questions and then link out to dedicated pages that answer each question in more depth.
Creating this web of connections will make search engines very happy, and when shoppers are googling questions about your product they will be directed to your dedicated page. Addressing these questions on separate pages will also help your URL appear when people are looking for answers about the competitors’ product or service.
Once you become a search result for a query about your competitor, you can convert these shoppers by directing them to your homepage or product page after they get the answer to their question.
LEARN: E-commerce SEO can be tricky to master. Learn the importance of link-building for your SEO strategy today. |
Optimizes your site for voice search
One of the hottest tech trends is voice search. Siri is an old friend, Alexa is newer to the crew, and there will be many more robots introduced to us as time goes on.
In 2019, 3.25 billion people used digital voice assistants, according to SEMrush. They project that this number will more than double by 2023. So let’s learn how to optimize your FAQ page for voice search.
It’s important to write your frequently asked questions in a longer, more conversational manner. People who use voice search tend to speak in full sentences, rather than fragments like people type in search engines.
FAQ pages are perfectly suited for voice search because they have the requirements needed, like being in the question-answer format. FAQ pages include question keywords and a direct answer, making it really easy for search engines to pull content or display a featured snippet.
DISCOVER: Just getting started with your online business? Find the right e-commerce platform for you to create and manage your digital storefront. |
When is an FAQ page appropriate?
If you’re considering making an FAQ page and don’t know if it’s completely necessary, that’s ok. An FAQ page is almost always appropriate. If you get lots of the same questions over and over again, then you definitely need to create an FAQ page. When you have a blog with a multitude of great content, an FAQ page is needed to educate customers about your product through those articles.
The only time an FAQ page isn’t necessary is if your product or service needs to be installed and controlled by a professional. For example, there would never be an FAQ about performing a surgery. Sure, there could be FAQs about what to expect after the surgery and how to take care of yourself, but patients don’t need to know how to perform the surgery.
How to make an FAQ page
There are seven simple steps to make the perfect FAQ page for your business. The design of an FAQ page is crucial for an easy-to-use customer experience. Follow these steps and your customer success team will thank you.
1. Determine the questions
If your company already exists, then either in your inbox or your head of customer service’s inbox there will be a plethora of questions to get you started. Use these as a jumping-off point and make the list of questions as long as possible. No question is a dumb one, and odds are if one person thought it, then there’s a group of people out in the world thinking it, too.
If you are creating your business from scratch, jot down the questions that your friends, family, and investors ask about your product or service. Create a focus group and ask people to test your product or service and ask them questions about their experience.
Make sure the questions are relevant to your specific product and service and that they could make people want to buy once they find out the answer. Always frame your questions in a positive way.
2. Categorize the questions
Determine common themes within your list of questions, and begin grouping them based on that commonality.
Common categories include:
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Sifting through a long list of random questions will only further frustrate the consumer. Categorizing all of the questions will help guide them on their search for answers.
3. Highlight or link most popular questions
They are called frequently asked questions for a reason. Make sure that all of the questions can apply to multiple people.
For instance, “What to do if my dog steals my underwear,” would not be a good FAQ. A better FAQ would be about the product details and the quality of the fabric used to decrease the number of tears.
After you have the most popular questions nailed down, pick no more than five questions to highlight as the most popular or top questions at the beginning of your FAQ page. Emphasizing these questions will make for a better user experience because most shoppers will just need those answers.
4. Include a search bar
This is the most helpful aspect of an FAQ page, and you will see plenty of search bars in the examples to come. Customers go to the FAQ page with a specific question in mind. Instead of making them hunt for it, have a search bar at the top of the page to save the shoppers’ time.
Search bars also cause related keywords to pop up in the results and can be a learning opportunity for the shopper. Without a search bar, customers can become lost and frustrated with the user experience.
5. Align with your brand look and feel
It’s always strange when browsing a beautifully designed e-commerce site, and then you click to the FAQ page and it looks like a design from the ’90s.
Of course, don’t over-design your FAQ page, but add some brand elements so that the shopper feels that they are in the same decade when they click over to it. Think about designing bullet points to align with your brand, or simply use your brand fonts. Make it feel just as important as the rest of the website, because it is.
6. Update regularly
An out-of-date FAQ page can be more frustrating for shoppers than not having an FAQ at all.
Be sure to update your FAQ page with new questions when you roll-out a new product or feature.
It’s good to look over the page quarterly so assess if any changes need to be made. Sometimes a question becomes more popular and needs to be moved to the top, or other times you may switch the payment processor and have to update those terms. No matter how big or how small the change is, make sure you reflect the changes in your FAQ page.
7. Track and improve
We talked about how the FAQ page can provide insights above, but in order to gather those insights, you must track the traffic and clicks on the page. Follow things like the order in which they clicked the questions and how they got to your FAQ page.
All of the actions taken on your FAQ page can help inform your product strategy so that your product team can improve the product or service based on your analysis of the page. Also looping in the software engineers is a good idea because they can alter the user experience based on the insights you gather.
What are the most frequently asked questions?
A good FAQ is general enough to address many issues. There are questions that just about every company answers on their FAQ page, so if you’re struggling to get started use these are your starting point. If they’re relevant to your company, of course.
How to answer your FAQs
When crafting the answers to your FAQs, involve someone from PR. It’s unlikely you have an entire PR team on your staff, which is OK, but there are plenty of freelance PR specialists who can give input while writing these answers. It will highly benefit you to consider hiring one for a week or two.
Some of these questions could cause you to expose shortcomings of your product or service, so it is imperative that you position these answers in a positive light while remaining truthful.
It’s not as easy as it sounds. For example…
FAQ: How much sugar is in D’s Energy drinks? Don’t say: There are 55 grams of sugar per serving, and the daily recommendation for sugar intake is 45 grams. Say: There are 55 grams per serving. Maintaining a healthy and well-balanced lifestyle is important to D’s Energy Drinks. Our beverages are perfect for athletes and those who maintain an active lifestyle. Check with your doctor before consuming if you have dietary concerns. |
Additionally, write your questions from the customer’s perspective and your answers from the business’s perspective.
For instance,
Question: How do I turn on my TV? Answer: We provide a remote control with each of our TVs. Click the ON button and you’ll be good to go! |
Where to put your FAQ page
The placement of your FAQ page depends on the structure of your website. After putting so much work into your FAQ page, you don’t want to hide it. Make sure your FAQ page is easy to find, because when people are hunting for answers, they don’t want to jump through hoops.
Consider putting your FAQ page on the top navigation of your website, or place it on a pull-down menu under the “Contact Us” tab. Don’t try to be fancy and put it in an uncommon location, just stick to where other’s are putting it.
30 examples of effective FAQs
Now that you have all of the steps and tips, it’s time to see good examples of FAQ pages. All of these pages are doing something right. Get inspired by the layout, content, and design so you can create an impactful FAQ page.
What’s great about the Kleenex FAQ page is its subtle use of branding. There are just enough blue accents and font variations without being overbearing. The page effectively categorizes the commonly asked topics, as well as gives the details of their customer service line if your question isn’t answered below.
Source: Kleenex
2. Lyft
You will soon learn these examples are all about the search bar for easy navigation. Users love that the search bar is the first thing they see on the Lyft help center. Since fees and charges are the most disputed aspect of the service, it’s good they placed those questions right below the search bar.
Source: Lyft
3. Instagram
Upon first glance, it looks like this FAQ page could be branded in a more appealing way. Instagram is a creative platform after all. But after exploring the page, their content is really genius.
They have a “what’s new” section that speaks to recent app updates, a common aspect among the app community. The categorization is simple, yet thorough and the “known issues” section takes the pressure off the customer service team if there’s a bug.
Source: Instagram
4. AWS (Amazon Web Services)
Amazon is really good at staying true to its brand wherever it shows up. Amazon is also really good at showing up everywhere, meaning they’re experts at SEO. Each of these FAQ sections direct to a separate page, which as previously mentioned, helps improve a domain’s SEO.
Source: AWS
5. Chewy
In this example, it was a good idea for Chewy to place that horizontal navigation bar for their FAQs. People have little patience for exploring below the fold (what’s not visible until scrolling). Since you can’t see any details above the fold (what’s visible without scrolling), it was necessary to put easy-to-use navigation.
Source: Chewy
6. Airbnb
Airbnb is always a go-to example for anything UX related. Their FAQ page is yet another perfect example.
They have the search bar first, followed by personalized questions based on your profile, and then they link to separate articles that address the commonly asked questions. Airbnb is the gold standard. If you can make your site be half as functional as theirs, you’re doing something right.
Source: Airbnb
TIP: Consumers want everything specifically catered to their interests. Invest in e-commerce personalization software to capture user behavior in real-time and provide personalized messages to shoppers. |
7. Spotify
So you get that the search bar is a must, but within the search bar section, Spotify places four of the top asked questions. It’s great that these questions are emphasized and categorized.
Spotify is one of those companies that does everything in its power to answer questions before putting you in contact with a customer service agent. A great FAQ page helps them succeed at this goal.
Source: Spotify
8. Mejuri
So far the examples covered are larger companies that have the time and resources to make an incredible FAQ. But if you’re just starting out, you probably want to see what smaller companies are doing.
Mejuri is a small jewelry company based in New York, and they did a very good job branding their FAQ page and categorizing all of the questions.
Source: Mejuri
9. Headspace
The goal of the Headspace meditation app is to relieve stress, so you can imagine their user experience has to be seamless otherwise people will no longer be customers.
Their FAQ page gives a sense of zen when you arrive. It’s simple, enticing, doesn’t over-explain, and has categories that lead you to more self-discovery.
Source: Headspace
10. Billie
Much like Headspace’s website, Billie’s website is really fun to explore. Their FAQ page doesn’t have a search bar, but they make up for the lack thereof with the ability to text questions. Aside from that, their FAQ page has a whole section dedicated to top questions.
Source: Billie
11. Starbucks
This page should be a bit prettier. Don’t take design inspiration from this example, but for a company that does so much, they do a stellar job at logically separating all of the questions and fitting them above the fold.
Starbucks checks all the boxes with a popular questions sidebar, a search bar, and simple categorization.
Source: Starbucks
12. Pinterest
Pinterest really wants you to use their search bar.
Many social platforms give their users the ability to have a personal and business account. The needs for both of these accounts are entirely different. It’s nice that they have two different tabs to address these differences.
Source: Pinterest
13. Jeni’s
This FAQ page is funny because it addresses the return policy as a top question, yet it’s an ice cream shop. It’s probably a top question, but an interesting one at that.
Anyway, this is a simple, yet effective example. Their FAQ page has a horizontal navigation bar that people can use to get the answers to their icy questions (pun intended).
Source: Jeni’s
14. Walt Disney World
Rest assured, the magical kingdom will have the Fairy Godmother answer all of your questions.
As you can tell, this page is very Disney…without being too Disney. They stay true to their brand while also having a search bar and separate pages per query.
Source: Walt Disney World
15. ThirdLove
This FAQ Page is very nice. ThirdLove’s use of icons here is refreshing, and they really lean into their brand voice. These aspects of an FAQ page make people at ease as they look for the answers to their questions.
Source: ThirdLove
16. SoundCloud
You never know who’s using your search bar to get help. SoundCloud gives a tip about using keywords for better search results, which makes the page more accessible for those who don’t use the search engines as frequently. A+ SoundCloud for thinking about everyone.
Source: SoundCloud
17. Pottery Barn
Pottery Barn provides jump links at the top of their FAQ page for shoppers to use to quickly get answers. Although they don’t have a search bar, their FAQ page is thorough and user-friendly.
The company also has the ordering section pre-selected because that’s the most common issue for customers when they come to the Pottery Barn FAQ page. Pottery Barn wouldn’t know this without tracking clicks and traffic to their page.
Source: Pottery Barn
18. Warby Parker
Warby Parker is one of the biggest e-commerce success stories. Ten years ago no one was selling glasses online, especially without a successful brick-and-mortar store in place.
This anecdote is important because Warby Parker knows e-commerce and they know it well. Once you start exploring below the fold, you will see that they do a really good job of interlinking between other pages on their website, which in turn improves SEO.
Source: Warby Parker
19. PAWs Chicago
Let’s take a look at how a non-profit tackles an FAQ page.
This page should have a search bar, but there are some good takeaways from this example. PAWs Chicago has a sidebar with more content for visitors to explore, as well as a local (not 1-800) number for people to call.
Once you expand the questions, the answers are especially clear and succinct.
Source: PAWs Chicago
20. Pampers
Pampers does a good job of keeping things simple on their FAQ page. They designed this page with the user in mind, a parent who is probably extremely busy if they’re changing diapers. There’s a search bar top and center, along with five of the top questions. The perfect amount to not overwhelm the shopper.
Source: Pampers
21. KraftHeinz
Having the “product locator” is especially important for a national food brand like KraftHeinz. Then, once you click a question it takes you to a separate page with a clear question-answer format. This format is extremely user-friendly and gives them some SEO juice.
Source: KraftHeinz
22. Charmin
Charmin has a very approachable brand and they carry that brand identity through their FAQ page. The way they box each question helps the brain sift through the information quicker and decreases the need for a search bar.
Source: Charmin
23. Gucci
Gucci gives the user many options to find answers. Shoppers can use the top navigation bars, the drop-down menu, or scroll through the different categories.
Source: Gucci
24. Spirit Airlines
Airline FAQ pages are likely the most frequented.
Spirit Airlines ensures their FAQ page looks like the rest of their website. Additionally, this page has a search bar, icons to help with accessibility, top questions, and simple categorization below the fold.
Source: Spirit Airlines
25. Nike
Nike’s FAQ page begins with the search bar and then goes into the “quick assists” section. The use of “quick assists” is nice here because it’s a sports pun, but it also makes sense to all users.
Source: Nike
26. Moleskine
Moleskine features their products as the background header image for this FAQ page, which is a seamless way to remind people why they are there and eventually drive them back to buy.
Source: Moleskine
27. LEGO VIP
LEGO VIP directs you to this page before going into their FAQ page, which you enter by clicking “explore.”
This is an out-of-the-box way for UX designers to think about the experience right before entering the FAQ page and it sticks to the brand identity closely.
Source: LEGO VIP
28. REI
Let’s look at the live chat and phone line hours section of REI’s FAQ page. When a shopper comes to your FAQ page and can’t find an answer, they’ll want to know the next steps. This clear outline of hours and methods of communication will ease any frustrations.
Source: REI
29. UGG
When looking at UGG’s FAQ page, it seems like the marketing team also had a say on what goes on the page because they included a sign-up link for their newsletter. Including opinions from all teams will lead to a better FAQ page.
It’s rare to see emailing list questions as an FAQ, but this could lead to some potential customers signing up and then purchasing a pair of boots.
Source: UGG
30. Sherwin-Williams
Sherwin-Williams turned their FAQ into more of a resource blog than a standard FAQ page. On the left they have the categories laid out and then within each category are blog posts as answers to questions.
Since painting is a creative and technical endeavor, Sherwin-Williams can get away with a less typical FAQ page. This page leads customers toward discovery, which will drive more purchases in the long run.
Source: Sherwin-Williams
There’s no such thing as a dumb question
Don’t neglect your FAQ page. Shoppers come to this page for help and if they don’t get it, you can kiss that sale goodbye. Be sure to spend a good chunk of time creating your very own FAQ page and you’ll reap the many benefits.
Sometimes customer questions go deeper than an FAQ page can handle. It’s in these instances that training your team on customer service skills is most important.