Support people and their managers seem to love Frequently Asked Questions, or FAQs, in knowledge base content. You see them in almost all knowledge bases. I’ve been pressured to include them and make sure the link is on the first page of the knowledge base, so customers can see them.
And they deflect not a single support call.
Nor do they ever answer any frequently asked question.
Why don’t FAQs work in the knowledge base?
Frequently Asked Questions in the knowledge base don’t work because they are not the questions anyone asks in the post-sales environment. It’s that simple.
Or at least no one asks those questions out of the context of the task at hand.
For example:
Can Banana Product assist me with HIPAA compliance? (a real knowledge base FAQ question with the name of the product changed.)
This is not a post-sales question and doesn’t belong in the knowledge base. This is a pre-sales question that’s part of the sales funnel involvement. It’s a requirement of the product some customers might have. The answer to this question can move people further into the sales funnel.
But no one using the product and working on a task asks that question. The cybersecurity person working on connecting the product to their data doesn’t have that question. HIPAA compliance is such a Big F-ing DealTM that this was dealt with well before the sale. That question was part of the customer business requirements.
This is all pre-sales content and has no place in the post-sales knowledge base.
Why shouldn’t we include FAQs in post-sales content?
Post-sales content is educating and instructing our customers in using the products. This is the point. And in a product led growth environment, you can’t waste time/effort/money creating and delivering irrational content to your customers.
For example, and this is my recent favorite:
Can I search across federated organizations?
No.
That’s the entire word-for-word FAQ and answer.
The place for this specific information in the post-sales environment is on the screen in the UI. That’s the point of need–where someone is setting up the search engine. Even better if this content is also in the KB article about setting up search. Perfection is both with keyword metadata set up for the KB article.
This information is not some random thought someone had, and then they opened their browser and typed the question to go find the answer. It’s at the moment of need.
Are you saying to never use them?
I’m saying don’t use FAQs in post-sales content. If there really is information the customer needs to know, put it in an article with the context the information requires, with good search architecture. Or design the information into the UI, so the customer can get the answer at the moment of need. Or use a CCMS and do both, programmatically!
I’m also saying there is a place for FAQs in the pre-sales content. How often have you looked at a product or service and just want some basic information, like what’s the cost? What features do I get at each price level? Does this work on a Mac?
That’s great information for an FAQ.
But how the heck do I use this product information is not good content for FAQs. It’s lazy writing and lazier information architecture. Don’t do that to your customers.
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