If you have a brick-and-mortar organisation that has not yet gone on the Internet, most of the questions that your customers have are handled over the phone.  What does this mean for your business in terms of cost?  Well, first of all, you need a lot of customer service persons.  This can cost your business thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands of pounds each year.  Then, you have to cover the actual telephone costs.  These costs may not be as bad if they are local, but what if they are long distance?  Worse, what if they are international?  Expect to spend thousands of more pounds.  Indeed, neither scenario has to be.  While you can’t completely eliminate a customer service staff and telephone bills for a large, successful company, you can significantly decrease them by having two things: a company website and a FAQ section.

Very little explaining has to be done when it comes to informing you of what a company website is, but if you’re new to the Internet, you might be in wonderment at what a FAQ section entails.  In fact, what is a FAQ period?  A FAQ, (also known as a Frequently Asked Question), is simply a question that is commonly asked by a customer about a company and/or their services.  A FAQ section would be a page on your company website showing all of these questions along with their answers.  How a FAQ is designed varies.  Some company websites will start by showing all of the FAQs, but none of the answers.  The customer would click on the FAQ, and the answer for just that FAQ would show up.  Other company websites show all of the FAQs and their answers, forcing the customer to have to scroll through the list to find the FAQ they want.  This type of FAQ section is annoying and should be avoided if you consider starting a company website.  The other type may take a few more steps when it comes to the design of your company website, but in the long run it’s much more customer-friendly.    

So, how can a FAQ section on a company website save you money?  It’s because you only have to pay for the hosting of the site; nothing has to be paid for staff or telephone calls.  Additionally, if you need more ideas for FAQs, you could even consider allowing your customers to submit them through contact forms.  You or your staff would then receive these questions by email.  You would answer them and, if you deem them to be commonly-asked questions, post them in your FAQ section.  Going through this process shouldn’t cost you too much extra, as most of it you could do yourself or through one or two people, (depending on the volume of emails you receive).