Royal Mail cuts email and phone enquiries in half
Now here's an interesting report from Royal Mail, which claims to have halved the number of phone and email enquiries made by users of its Web site after it developed an interactive frequently asked questions (FAQs) section on the site.
Because of the 4.5 million visitors that Royalmail.com gets every month, the FAQs system was developed using a commercial application from Transversal, but it highlights the fact that an easy-to-access FAQs section on the site can significantly cut the number of support emails and phone calls for just about any sized business.
The Royal Mail FAQs service is called `Ask Sarah' and, since launching in June of this year, has slashed email queries via the Web site by 50 per cent - and up to 96 per cent in some areas.
The key issue the Royal Mail needed to address, it says, was the variable technical capabilities of its site visitors. This is why the Ask Sarah service has such a simplistic interface.
So what does this teach small firms?
Keep it simple. Draw up a list of questions and answers in a numbered format and post it to your Web site. By building up the FAQs (and answers) list as visitors email in their questions, the database can save your firm several hours of effort in answering questions online that have been answered before.
You can read more about the Royal Mail Ask Sarah project here, but it's worth noting that the idea of developing an FAQ sections on a Web site can apply to almost any company with a Web site.
Take a look at the following guides for details on how best to design your site:
Designing a website
By Steve Gold, News Editor
