The dream goes something like this: “Now that we offer our customers web self-service, they answer their own questions. The phones are quiet and the e-mail flow has dwindled to a trickle.” This self-service dream includes images of a 24/7, personalized, customer-enabling, transaction-completing, purchase-facilitating automated wonder.

At the very center of this dream are mighty and magical FAQs. These FAQs reflect the questions that customers do ask. And they answer the customers' questions, solve their problems, and enable them to take action -- without a follow-up e-mail or phone call.

An impossible dream? You'll probably never dream up all the questions your customers might ask, or write answers to respond to all situations. But well-written FAQs will at least let you sleep peacefully!  These five tips will help you build web self-service on a solid foundation of FAQs.

1.  Choose The Appropriate Question Word
It may seem obvious, but each question word – who, what, when, where, why, how – requires a particular type of information for a complete answer. Why questions should be answered with reasons; how questions should be answered with procedures or steps in a process; when questions should be answered with times or dates, etc.

Amazon's FAQs on electronic banking for its Advantage program members provide the right information for each question word.

• “Why must my financial institution be in the United States?” has a reason answer: “Amazon.com can only disburse payments using U.S. dollars, and the systems we use are only set up to handle payments within the U.S...”

• “How will I know that I've been paid?” has a procedure answer:“ The bank that Amazon.com uses to send payments will send you a paper direct deposit notification by mail..."

2.  Organize FAQs In A Way That’s Easy For The User To Grasp
CitiFinancial Mortgage does a confusing job of organizing its customer service FAQs. It presents ten FAQ categories: Account Maintenance, Documents, Escrow, Insurance, New Loan Servicing, Payments, Soldiers and Sailors Civil Relief Act, Payoff, Taxes, and Year-end. How are these categories organized? (Perhaps alphabetically, once upon a time.) How can users predict where to find the answer they need when the categories differ so much in scope and overlap? Let's say a customer has this FAQ: "Will CitiFinancial Mortgage pay my taxes before the end of December?" Should he click the Taxes category or the Year-end category?

The discount travel company, Orbitz, organizes its FAQs in a variety of ways. Customers can scan the list of "Ten Top FAQs" to see whether their question is listed. Or, customers can browse FAQs by topic: Travel Planning, Membership Information, Technical Issues, Doing Business with Orbitz.

3.  Place The FAQs Section Near Other Kinds Of Help
If customers can't help themselves online, you have to help them in another way. Norelco does a good job of offering other help options. Norelco's two FAQs sections -- "FAQs Before You Buy" and "FAQs After You Buy" -- are grouped with other help at "Customer Care." Other help options include contacting Norelco (phone, e-mail, mail, or fax), using a glossary, and chatting with a live representative.

4.  Integrate User Questions Into Page Text Throughout the Site
Why segregate user questions in the FAQ silo? Excellent web self-service provides answers when and where they are needed. The Janus Roth IRA page anticipates two questions IRA investors often ask: 

• "Want information on moving a Roth IRA from another financial institution to a Janus Roth IRA?"
• "Looking for investment tools?

Though not labeled "FAQs," these frequently asked questions about Roth IRAs appear where users will want see them: on the left, near the navigation, in a section labeled "Highlights."

5.  Deep Link Answers To Other Relevant Information At The Site
The FAQs section should not be a final destination; it should be a gateway to detailed information at other parts of the site. Deep link answers to the rest of the site to take users to exactly what they are looking for.

For example, the National Institutes of Health's Questions and Answers About NIH does a great job of deep linking. The answer to the question "Can I volunteer for NIH research studies even if I'm healthy?" in the Healthy Volunteers section links users to the pages that explain what kinds of studies healthy volunteers can take part in:

"The NIH Clinical Center provides an opportunity for healthy volunteers to participate in medical research studies (sometimes called protocols or trials). Healthy volunteers provide researchers with important information for comparison with people who have specific illnesses. Every year, nearly 3,500 healthy volunteers participate in studies at NIH. Visit the Clinical Research Volunteer Program to learn about the benefits of volunteering."

The Ultimate Answer
Regardless of how hard you try, you can never anticipate and answer all of your customers' FAQs. Consider the FAQ we found at Pennsylvania House furniture: "What if I have a question that isn't answered here?" For customers, the ultimate in self-service includes contacting the company if the online content hasn't served their needs. Let customers know that you'll answer their infrequently asked questions with a personal e-mail or a phone call.

In Brief

Learn how to write FAQs that become the foundation of your web self-service efforts. That means writing FAQs that answer your customers' questions and enable them to take action--without a follow-up e-mail or phone call.