Product Page Q&A Integration

When you’re running an ecommerce store, most of the customer service questions that you’ll field will likely be related to the products you’re selling.  Your product details page is the most visited page on your website and the most natural for your users to engage with your business, why wouldn’t you have customer service software and content integrated seamlessly into those product pages so that your content can assist in converting sales?  It’s important that your knowledge base has APIs or widgets that allow you to integrate at least product Q&A capabilities right into your product page…see an example here:

What that will do is ensure that your the Q&A content generated from your previous customer service inquiries builds a useful knowledge base that gets distributed within your product pages and can help convert new sales.   Answerbase customers boast that up to 75% of customers who ask questions through the product page convert to a sale.   To have your customer questions being answered, but not effectively distributed to impact sales doesn’t make sense.

Duplicate Question Recognition and Management

When your customers are engaging your customer service software and knowledge base, either on the product page or through the help or knowledge base section of your website, you want to make sure that it has the ability to effectively recognize if the information they’re seeking out is already available.  The questions that the user inquires about should be compared automatically to your existing database of previous customer service inquiries and relevant matches should be presented through a predictive auto-suggest capability as the text field is being populated.

If this is done well, this should serve both your customer and your business well, since customer service questions that have already been answered should be addressed automatically with your existing content through the software.   From the customer’s standpoint, they get a  great answer to their question immediately without having to wait for a response via email or chat.

Studies show that 71% of customers prefer self-help that don’t require them to interact with a person.  Give them that option, its preferred by them and saves you time and money if done well.  Answerbase customers see that between 60-75% of questions posed by customers are answered automatically by existing Q&A content that has already been answered in the past.

SEO Friendly Landing Pages for Content

The customers who are engaging your website and asking you customer service questions are not the only people who have questions about the products you sell.  Guess who else does?   Potential customers are asking those same questions through Google and other search engines and they are ripe for purchasing the products that you sell.  This gives you a great opportunity to turn your customer service content on your knowledge base into content marketing material that can actually help you acquire new ecommerce customers!

See an example of how this works below, as a customer looking for a specific product is introduced to content from an ecommerce merchant’s knowledge base as the first organic result:

The right customer service software should have pages that are optimized for search right out of the gate, with SEO-friendly slugs, tagging, page titles, etc.   An example of an ecommerce store doing this well is Epestsupply, where they have quadrupled the organic search traffic to their site and doubled their overall traffic by growing a valuable knowledge base of content…simply responding to customer questions (self-serving plug…they use Answerbase to power that knowledge base).   This is a huge opportunity to both support your customers while also creating a new customer acquisition channel in the process.   Answerbase has studied customer results where the knowledge base content that is created simply by addressing customer questions can turn into one of their most productive channels.    What we see is that new customers acquired through customer service content has an average Lifetime Value (LTV) of up to 2x more than the overall visitors from Google, and up to 6x more than those coming from Facebook.   You can save costs on customer support while in the same breath increase your sales and conversions, now that’ something to get excited about!

Support Multiple Content Formats

Your customers will have different preferences on how to be serviced as customers, and your customer service knowledge base of information should be communicated in formats that play well to the products that you sell, generational considerations, and even down to the personal preferences of your customers (which, conveniently, will service many).   Ensure that your knowledge base of customer service content not only supports text but also allows you to post videos, images, and documents to support their informational needs.   See an example of how this can play out to most effectively service a customer’s request for information related to a product…

This will help ensure that your content addresses their specific needs with the most appropriate format(s).

Partner & Customer Community Features

This section is most relevant if you want to consider getting manufacturers, influencers, partners, service providers, or even other customers involved with creating valuable customer service content that you own which can benefit your business.   It’s not uncommon to have at least a small group of partners that you trust in that process for at least some of the content formats you support…so ensure your knowledge base software at least offers the capabilities even if you just want to test it.

A good knowledge base will not only have community features, but also allow you to identify specific groups of users and allocating special permissions to those groups.   For example, if you want to open up answering of customer service questions but only to select customers, select partners or service providers, etc.   You can get the right mix that is comfortable for your business, and ensure that your customers are showered with the best content from the best possible sources within your network.  Your ecommerce customer service software should allow your content to visually distinguish the source of the content and make that clear to end users.  See an example here on how answers from a company’s staff are specifically highlighted and pinned at the top.  See how this example distinguishes between staff answers and answers submitted by everyone else…

A good ecommerce customer service solution should have the ability to scale up and down these features as you’d need, whether you choose to open capabilities up to only a select group of influencers….or whether you’d want a full blown community with user profiles, gamification, etc.

It’s common to give customers who have purchased a product the ability to post answers to new questions about that product, but on the other side of that some ecommerce businesses prefer not to have to deal with time or cost of moderating user generated content.   There are pluses and minuses to everything, so you should weigh those out and determine what makes sense for your business…but don’t get stuck with a knowledge base that doesn’t give you the option to enable these features at any time.

We hope this post has been helpful as you consider what knowledge base and customer service software to use for your ecommerce store.   If you have any questions or would like a consultation to speak about the goals of your ecommerce site, you can Contact Us and we’ll have an ecommerce specialist help point you in the right direction.

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What are the benefits of adding Q&A to your product pages?

The core benefits of product Q&A is increasing ecommerce conversion rates, product description seo, and to increase ecommerce traffic.  As you probably know, most users start their questions about products through search engines like Google, so its important for online retailers to create that content and make it available in a way that search engines will gobble it up and send those potential customers your way.

Answerbase creates an optimized page for every Q&A combination, which performs well in search results and leads those potential customers right to your product page.  This allows you to service your existing visitors, and also lead brand new visitors right to your doorstep.

Ecommerce merchants using Answerbase product Q&A have experienced:

• Up to 75% of product questions they answer convert to a sale as you engage your customers and reduce ecommerce bounce rates.
• Organic search traffic grows by up to 4x their previous levels
• Lifetime Value (LTV) of new customers acquired through Q&A generated by Answerbase is up to 2x higher than those from Google and up to 6x higher than those from Facebook.

You can view some ecommerce case studies for more information on how product page Q&A has contributed to their success.

What does Q&A look like on a product page?

You should add Q&A right on your product page.  If you have tabs on your pages, then we recommend creating a new tab which has “Q&A” or “Questions & Answers”.  If you don’t support tabs, simply list it below your product description so that users can have a chance to easily as a question about any details that you haven’t provided yet on your product page.

Answerbase’s default e-commerce widget will give the user the ability to post a question, and also see the most popular questions about the product they’re looking at…see an example below of one of Answerbase’s Q&A widgets integrated into a product page:

If a user starts asking a question that is similar to questions that have already been asked and have answers available, it will suggest that available content to the visitor so they can click on their question and view the answer immediately.

This allows them to get their questions answered immediately and get on with the purchasing process, so you can make money!

How do you add Q&A to your product page?

Answerbase supports app store integrations with ecommerce platforms like Shopify, Bigcommerce and other popular platforms for easy integration.  If you are on a home grown platform or another platform, no worries…Answerbase makes it easy to add Q&A to any product page through our Full Featured Q&A widget for e-commerce.

Once you’ve signed up for an account (or Free Trial) on Answerbase, you can go under “Integration” in your administration area and you’ll find our widget builder where you can customize a widget to reflect the same style/colors of your site.   Once you’ve adjusted the widget’s design to your liking on the widget builder, it will give you the appropriate code on the bottom that you can simply copy and paste into the product page of your e-commerce store.

Within the code. you’ll see parameters where you can have your site dynamically insert the product information so Answerbase is able to understand what product the widget is relevant to when it displays on your page.  It also allows Answerbase to promote that product to the user who asked the question and any future users who come from search engine traffic, to help you convert more customers.

We hope things are going well with business, and if you have any questions about how Q&A can help your online store feel free to contact Answerbase’s Team for a free consultation.

If you’re interested in learning more, view ALL of the benefits of ecommerce Q&A software.

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Enabling Articles

You’ll see in your “Settings > General Settings” area that you have some new options here, where you can enable Articles lists to show on your site, as well as an “All Posts” tab which will show all of the relevant content from all of the content types you choose to enable for your platform.

Public Display

On the public interface, based on the options you enable as mentioned above, your users will be able to browse both your Q&A and Article knowledge base content in a user friendly way.   You can enable an “All Posts”  tab to show both Q&A and article content, and they’ll also have a new “Articles” tab available where they easily filter through the content that’s relevant to their needs.

Of course, that same navigation will stay consistent when users search and browse topics as well, giving them a familiar navigation experience to find all the information they’re looking for.

Managing Articles

When in your administration interface under “Content”, you’ll notice a new “Articles” option.

From there, you’re able to add new articles and manage articles for your site.

When creating and editing an article, you have similar capabilities as you do with Q&A content, where you can enhance your articles with rich text editing features (bold, italics, images, video, and even custom html).

Content Insights

Finally, through Answerbase’s Content Insights, we will let you know when you have questions that are highly popular with your audience and worthy of your team doing a deeper dive and write an article on a demanded topic.  Those are displayed for you within your content insights area.

You’ll notice that under your “Recommended Action” items, “Create an Article” will be a new call-to-action when that makes sense as well.  These new tools enable you to focus your time and resources on topics that you know your users are interested in, allowing you to ensure a better ROI for your efforts, high quality content and more satisfied users.

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Save time by cross-referencing existing content whenever you can.

Building and growing a highly referenceable support knowledge base comes in handy for using existing content to answer new questions that come in. In this example from bettycrocker.com, the “Ask Betty” feature simply directs the customer to a relevant link rather than requiring a tailored response. To maximize efficiency, look for knowledge base technology that enables you to cross-reference content quickly and easily. Of course, you’ll continue to run into scenarios where need to manage a customer inquiry which requires an individualized answer; but with all the time you save referencing existing content on other questions where it does make sense, you should still be able to be efficient without compromising service.

Make it easy for customers to find their own answers (and to find you).

Did you know that 67% of customers prefer to use self-service tools before getting in touch with a service representative? To make these tools truly useful, it’s important to empower customers to find their own answers. But the key is to do that without ever making the process seem burdensome or making customers feel as if self-service is their only choice. Self-service tools like online tutorials, Q&A, videos, and other knowledge base formats that can be easily searched and browsed are all great ways to accomplish this goal. Ideally, utilize technology that’s able to quickly recognize your customers’ needs and respond immediately with relevant information to address those needs. The more you’re able to effectively connect customers with the right support content, the less likely they are to need to contact your support organization for further help. Of course, in those cases, you should make the process clear and as easy as possible for them if they feel that’s what they need to do.

Use social media – but bring your customers back to you.

Social media is an important component of customer support; after all, that’s where many customers “live” online and most often interact with brands when they go in search of answers about products and services. You need to be there to field those inquiries, and you should – but you’ll be better able to control your interactions with them on your own turf. When you respond to customers on Twitter, Facebook or other social channels, always take the opportunity to direct them back to the solutions referenced on your own website. This allows you to bring them back to an environment where you have full control over the user experience, as well as where you lead them next to help accomplish your business goals.

Be sure every search ends successfully.

When people go to search engines with their questions or problems about your products or services, be sure you have the content there to answer them. Maintaining publicly available content that’s easily found by search engines helps make sure customers get their answers from you – and not from other sources over which you have no control. For businesses whose clients log into an online portal, be sure you provide search tools that are easy to use so they can quickly find the content that will satisfy their inquiries.  Having this content available through the channels that customers are actually using helps ensure they get satisfactory answers to their questions from the real subject matter expert (that’s you).  In turn, you effectively nip the issue in the bud so they are served well without submitting a new inquiry.

Focus new support content on topics that meet proven customer needs.

When you’re creating new customer support content for future inquiries, use your time wisely: Identify and focus on the issues and questions that matter most to customers. Analytics tools like the Google Analytics Content tool and Hubspot page performance reports can help you track activity and look at how existing content is performing. You can also glean insights from your own knowledge base about what types of content your customers seek out most often. For example, our Answerbase Q&A’s Content Insights feature identifies topics in high demand and recommends new content to create based on that information.  This ensures that you have the most relevant content available to reference moving forward, satisfying the highest percentage of future inquires.

If you’re committed to delivering a satisfying support experience to your customers, there are far more efficient ways to achieve your goal than allocating more and more scarce resources to customer support. Build a solid base of content to draw from, update it regularly based on customer demand and follow these tips to make it work harder for you as a source of effective, reliable support.

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1. Keep the knowledge good CSRs leave behind when they leave.

Turnover is tough enough, but it’s even tougher when good, long-term CSRs leave – and take all the knowledge they’ve accumulated over the years with them. When this happens, it just adds to the already-high cost of having to hire and train a replacement. (Estimates range from $8,800 to $15,000.) The cost of losing a seasoned CSR’s knowledge may not be as quantifiable as that, but anyone who’s experienced such a loss can tell you it’s no less painful.

Fortunately, there’s technology available today to help retain the knowledge that veteran CSRs acquire over time: a knowledgebase. When accumulated in a knowledgebase, information such as answers to common customer questions will remain available to help keep up the quality of customer service. So while you may lose a CSR whose experience and knowledge makes it easy to quickly size up and address a customer’s problem, you don’t have to lose the experience and knowledge itself. Rather, you can allow it to populate the knowledgebase, where it will be available for newer CSRs to refer to when they are helping a customer with a problem that may be new to them – but may not actually be new at all.

2. Dramatically reduce the investment you make in new employees.

There are two very important things that technology can accomplish for a company struggling with CSR turnover:

• Reduced hiring requirements: As more customer service content gets posted online through knowledge bases, tutorials, articles and other tech-based channels, customers are more likely to be able to find the information they need without even making contact with a CSR (In fact, our own clients reduce their incoming inquiries by about 30% on average). Lower demand for CSR services means you may not need to fill all the vacant positions created by turnover, enabling you to reduce hiring and training costs – and achieve significant savings for your company.
• Lower training burden: If you have established a good knowledgebase, CSRs will be able to use it as a source for much of the information they need to do their jobs. Therefore, you won’t need to provide as much training to the CSRs you do hire to replace those who leave. Access to good information to help get the job done can also help reduce CSRs’ stress – one of the factors that can drive them to quit.

3. Identify your best performers – and give them more reasons to stay.

Today’s digital world equips employers with more technology tools than ever to identify your top-performing CSRs and reduce turnover among them. If you have a knowledgebase that includes the ability for customers to rate answers received from CSRs, you can track individual performance over time. Add to that your data from post-interaction surveys and other sources of customer opinions, along with information from tools that measure CSR speed and efficiency, and it’s easy to tell exactly who’s consistently excelling overall. Then you can motivate them to stay – whether by rewarding them financially, supporting them in their professional goals or taking other positive steps. You can even use these same tools and analytics to identify underperforming CSRs and encourage them to leave when necessary. So when you do experience turnover, it’s more likely to be the poor performers that are moving along.

If you started this article thinking that CSR turnover is generally a bad thing, I hope by now you’ve come to the conclusion that doesn’t have to be the case. With the technology resources available to you today, you can respond to turnover more positively than ever before – and turn it to your advantage.

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