The Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) page is the quickest aid to customers' confusion over procedural issues. Because FAQs are a self-service solution, they can benefit your company by cutting down on e-mail and phone support requirements. But FAQs can be a drain to maintain.

Metrics for evaluating FAQ pages are plain and simple: page hits and monitoring customer questions. You want to know what questions are being asked the most often. Once you've identified these you can determine the order in which to place the questions and answers on the FAQ pages to facilitate access to them.

Page Views Rule

The most important measurement of a FAQ's effectiveness is page views. However, if you use a single page for your FAQ list, measuring only the hit count will not give you a detailed picture. You will know the page was viewed but not which questions customers sought. One remedy is to use referrer logs from your site monitoring data to track the page people visited just before linking to the FAQ page.

Comb customer e-mail inquiries for frequent questions to add to your FAQ page.

Narrow the scope of your tracking efforts by linking from each section of your site to a specific FAQ theme page. The number of hits to each theme page measures which topics visitors seek more information about. Before you hop to building theme pages, keep in mind the extra time needed to build them. Be certain it's the right traffic tool for your site; otherwise, it may not be a cost-effective tool.

It's a Cost Thing

A FAQ may be an inexpensive method of providing customer self-service on your Web site, but it's not a cure-all to customer questions. Using your FAQ pages to keep a pulse on the rest of the site and your customers' expectations doesn't mean you should build endless pages of questions and answers. The hours you spend updating the Web site cost money. If it's not going to increase your sales or customer service efforts, it's not worth your time.

Remember, a lot of hits don't always mean good news. If your FAQ page receives too many, it could mean that your site is poorly designed or does not communicate your product information clearly. Adding more questions and answers or producing a more organized FAQ page will not necessarily correct the underlying problem.

Use FAQ metrics to help answer customer questions more efficiently, whether it's by updating your FAQ pages or by clarifying information elsewhere on your site.

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Jennifer LeClaire

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