The Neglected Support Page
A good sales pitch may get the customer to buy once. To keep your customers for life, look at your support pages.
Excellent support will turn them into repeat customers.
Who doesn’t want that?
The Sad Tale of Major High-End Makeup Company’s FAQ Page
In June of 2020, we did a review of a high-end cosmetic company’s FAQ page. We embarked on the assignment believing, “This is a major company. Of course, all their pages are going to be top-notch! This will be the easiest assignment we had all week.”
We could not have been more wrong.
This major brand used the FAQ page as a dumping ground instead of answering questions. They posted trendy corporate CYA statements, company policy, and statements in French. At least, we think they were French since Canada was mentioned several times. (Most of us studied Spanish in high school.)
Here are some of the issues my team and I found:
- “Makeup” is misspelled in several different ways
- The company’s nondiscrimination hiring policy is listed first. “How to get a refund” is not listed at all
- Chaotic and hard to navigate, no organization is present
- The use of French in an English sentence with no translation or context clues to define it
- Internal links are too hard to distinguish from regular text. Links are light grey on a white background.
- Internal links do not work or lead to 404 error codes (404 = no page found)
- Answers to customer questions were listed at the bottom of corporate policy – if the answer existed at all.
It was horrifying and inspiring. Here was the perfect example of what NOT to do!
Obviously, their customer service department had not given any input on what needed addressing.
We often wonder how much business they lost because of it.
Why Should You Care?
Look at it from your customer’s point of view.
Your customer just spent a chunk of their change on your product (or service). Then when they needed you after the sale, it was all crickets. (Not a good Sound of Silence either.)
Little is more frustrating than feeling left “high and dry” by a company to whom you paid a lot of money. Quickly, frustration will turn to accusations and exaggerations. The customer will feel like a victim and accuse your sales team of lying. Then accuse the whole company of being heartless and greedy. Next, the customer will complain loudly to their friends and co-workers — creating negative word of mouth. Negative word of mouth spreads faster than a wildfire in a windstorm.
It is said that it takes at least 10 positive statements to counter 1 negative.
Don’t believe it?
Ask yourself this: When buying a product, do you read the positive comments or the negative ones under a product’s description?
Negative word of mouth is incredibly hard to overcome. It fuels your competition. These complaints are gold nuggets they will use to steal your future sales.
Where Do You Start?
First, ask yourself, “what do my customers need to know?” Then create pages that enhance your customer’s user experience. For example, if you sell accounting software, your customers may want to know the following:
- How do I use this software?
- How do I change my account information?
- How do I add a new client?
- Will this import data from my old software?
Types of Support Pages
There are more options to offer support than just a standard FAQ. Below are some options. Be creative and interact with your customers. Turn them into your fan base and have fun with them. Statistics show well-supported customers make up the bulk of your new product buyers.
- How-to videos
- Customer feedback forums
- Free software training like automated self-paced classes
- Easy to use, easy to find “Contact Us” page
- Live Q & A webinars
The Buying Journey is only over if you let it!
Want to leverage your support pages, let’s hop on a video call and discuss it!
