FAQ Bots vs. Traditional FAQ Pages: What You Need to Know

In a technology-driven world, should we be entrusting chatbots with our FAQs? Let’s compare FAQ bots and traditional FAQ pages…

For years, it has been drilled into e-commerce site owners that they must implement a traditional FAQ page into their website. However, this could no longer be the favourable option as technology and artificial intelligence become bigger players in e-commerce.

With automation becoming possible for FAQs, could it be possible to cut down on time and resources in this area?

Throughout this guide, we’ll delve into everything you need to know about traditional FAQs compared to FAQ bots, including the pros and cons of each.

What is an FAQ page?

FAQs – or frequently asked questions – allow you to acknowledge and address common customer questions, queries, and concerns. These can cover anything from your products and services to general business enquiries.

The section or page should provide your customers with a dedicated area for finding answers, gaining reassurance, and learning more about your products and services. Whether the information isn’t suitable for a product or service page, or you simply want to keep all the most important information together – FAQs provide a perfect solution for businesses looking to collate their commonly asked questions and answers.

What are the pros and cons of FAQ pages?

FAQs are often the most popular choice for e-commerce sites trying to solve the issue of repeat customer queries. So, what’s good about them and what isn’t?

Let’s explore the pros and cons in greater depth…

Pros

High-ranking SEO

While most product and service pages are light on content – content on FAQ pages can be bulked up so that they rank higher for keywords. This makes your site easier to find on search engines and directs customers to your FAQs, where they can subsequently explore the rest of your site.

Provides self-service assistance

Traditional FAQs allow customers to independently search for the information they need without requiring a customer service agent. Therefore, your customers can consult the site rather than a customer service agent.

Cuts down on repeat customer queries

Adding FAQs can slash the day-to-day number of repeat customer queries your customer service team deals with.

The fewer queries your team needs to respond to via email, phone, or any other method, the better it is for both you and the customers.

Cons

Not based on real frequently asked questions

More often than not, the FAQs section will be created by a marketing team that is rarely clued up on the most common customer service queries. As a result, they will include questions and answers that they think will be useful.

Some questions might prove to be useful, while others serve the agenda of the marketing team instead. For example, questions like “I love your brand! How can I share it on my socials?” aren’t likely to have been asked by a real customer. Instead, they include these in the hopes that customers will share the business, which creates free advertising.

Adds unnecessary complexity

FAQs are supposed to cut out any complexity from your customer service journey, although they can end up having the opposite effect.

Customers will often end up scouring through different FAQ categories and sub-headings to even find the topic they’re looking for, never mind the exact question. Plus, if they don’t find their question on the page, then they will have wasted time.

If your customers still need to ask repeat queries to your live customer support team, this usually means that your FAQs section isn’t working as intended.

Directs customers in the wrong direction

Although high-ranking SEO looks great and is usually taken as a win, it can mean that your customers are directed to the wrong place. Rather than them discovering your product and service pages first, they’re more likely to find your FAQ page.

While you can hope that this leads them organically into the things you’re offering, you can’t guarantee this will be the case.

What are FAQ bots?

On the other hand, an FAQ chatbot is an automated service capable of responding to common questions about products and services your business offers.

Rather than creating pages filled with questions and answers, your customers can ask the FAQ chatbots for the answer to their questions.

How do FAQ bots work?

Chatbots can be integrated into your site to appear on any page, alongside being used on your social media platforms.

They work by using AI tools to interpret human communication, which allows them to provide answers to questions. As the technology becomes more widely used, it has developed to be able to answer questions even if they’re asked differently than how they were originally programmed.

The bots become better at understanding more complex questions and can give more detailed, well-structured answers as technology naturally improves.

Customers can then access the bots at any time to ask their questions and be provided with a quick and simple response.

How can FAQ bots benefit your business and customers?

Using FAQ bots can have multiple benefits for you and your customers.

Below are just a few of the highlights…

Increased efficiency

Implementing FAQ bots has the potential to improve your response rate, alongside saving you time and money.

For you, this means that your team can spend less time and resources responding to the same questions.

For your customers, this means that they receive instant gratification since their queries can be responded to quickly, accurately, and with ease. Therefore, this should boost their satisfaction rate.

FAQ bots also reduce human error in your responses. As humans, we all make mistakes which can bleed into our customer service. So, as long as the information you give the chatbot is correct, you can trust that they’re relaying the correct information to your customers.

Productivity can also be boosted since the business will have more time to focus on other goals and things they want to achieve rather than focusing all their efforts on responding to questions.

man using computer connected to 2 computer and 1 mobile screens

More effective customer service journey

Streamlining your customer service journey should always be at the forefront of your strategy. Including an FAQ bot to answer questions directly means your customers won’t need to scroll through a list of commonly asked questions before finding the answers they’re looking for.

Additionally, you can focus more resources on bulking up the content on product and service pages to help bump up their SEO ranking. You want people to find the products you’re selling rather than an FAQ page that customers usually head to after their purchase.

The journey to your page starts from the search engine, which is why this is such an important thing for e-commerce site owners to consider.

Provides a guide

Implementing your FAQ chatbot will require the creation of a guide script. Artificial intelligence requires a team-provided template of how to respond to questions.

The research and planning required to do this successfully should ensure that your team has a better understanding of customer expectations for your service.

Solve issues with a single conversation

The simpler it is for customers to receive the information they need, the better.

FAQ chatbots allow customers and your team to resolve a query with as little input from both as possible. Instead of scrolling through lists of Q+A’s, customers can ask their questions in their own words while the automated system works to craft a response using the script provided.

As a result, contact time is significantly reduced, and more customers can be responded to at the same time using this technology.

Which is better to use?

As AI and chatbot technology continues to advance, it reveals all the benefits it can have for both your business and your customers.

With increased efficiency and a more streamlined customer service journey, FAQ bots appear to come out on top compared to the traditional FAQ page.

Although we might not start to see the switch just yet with so many e-commerce site owners holding onto the idea that FAQs can serve a greater purpose, companies are slowly leaning into the idea of automation for this aspect of the customer service journey.

However, there’s no denying that every e-commerce site must have a solution for repeat customer queries if they want to keep up with the competition.

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