Why your website needs good FAQs, and 10 tips for writing them

Open your support inbox and count how many of last week's messages were really new. Usually it's few: how do I cancel, how long does shipping take, where's my invoice, why isn't the email arriving. The same questions, over and over, answered by hand every time.

Good FAQs are the cheapest way to break that loop.

What they are for

They answer right away. Your customer has the question now, not tomorrow when you open the inbox. If the answer is in plain sight, they sort it out themselves, at three in the morning or on a Sunday.

They take repeated work off your plate. Every question an FAQ answers is a message you don't have to write. Your team keeps what really needs a person.

They sell. Many doubts come up just before buying: the final price, delivery times, whether it can be returned, whether it can be cancelled. People who can't find the answer often don't ask. They leave.

They build trust. A business that clearly explains its terms, the less pleasant ones included, looks like a business with nothing to hide.

They get you found. People search Google, and more and more AI assistants, with the question exactly as they'd ask it. An FAQ that uses the same words has a good chance of showing up.

Why many FAQs don't help

Because they're written for the company, not the customer: questions nobody asks ("Why choose us?"), answers that go round in circles before answering, information from two years ago, and all of it buried on a page nobody reaches. An FAQ that doesn't answer is worse than none: the customer wastes their time and then writes to you annoyed.

10 tips for FAQs that work

1. Take them from your inbox, not your head. The best questions are the ones you've already been asked. Go through recent messages and note the ones that repeat.
2. Write the question the way your customer would. "How do I cancel my subscription?", not "Cancellation policy". In their words, which are the ones they'll search for.
3. One question, one answer. If an FAQ answers three things, it's three FAQs.
4. The answer goes in the first sentence. "Yes, you can return it within 30 days." The details come after.
5. Short, with steps when there's something to do. If the answer needs more than a few paragraphs, it's an article: write it separately and link to it.
6. Name buttons and screens exactly as they appear. If the button says Settings, don't write "preferences". The customer looks on screen for the word you gave them.
7. No small print. Bad news, clearly: what can't be done, what it costs, how long it takes. Finding out later is what really makes people angry.
8. Group them by topic. Payments, shipping, account… With ten FAQs it doesn't matter; with forty, without categories nobody finds anything.
9. In your customers' language. If you sell in several countries, an FAQ in a language they don't understand answers nothing.
10. Keep them alive. When you change a price or a process, change the FAQ the same day. And every question you keep getting is an FAQ that's missing or unclear.

Where to put them

Where the doubt comes up. On a help page, yes, but also next to the contact form, so the customer sees the answer before writing to you, and close to the delicate moments: payment, the account, cancelling.

How Helpeen does it

In Helpeen you write your FAQs grouped by category, in every language you need. If you like, AI prepares the translation and you just review it before publishing.

What you publish shows up on your website with the widget, next to the chat, so your customers find the answer before writing to you, and on your public Helpeen page too.

And if you turn on the AI agent, it reads your FAQs and articles and answers with them in seconds, citing where the answer comes from. When it doesn't know, it doesn't make things up: it hands you the conversation and notes the question, so you can write the FAQ that was missing. That way your FAQs grow with what people really ask you.

Getting started costs nothing: the Free plan covers one project. Write your first ten FAQs this week; your inbox will notice.