FAQs in CRM: Answers for Everybody

30 Jan 2014

Let me ask you something, where do you go when you’ve got a question? For example, if you want to know the true story behind a new film. Many years ago, when I was a kid, my first stop would have been to look up the major characters in an encyclopedia or reference book in the library. By the time I was a teenager, I would still be going to my local library, but I’d probably be checking out Encarta. Now, I’d just Google it.

The progress of technology.

The question is, the view of this progression, why do you still hold your employee handbook primarily as a set of word documents on your hard drive? Do you print them out for each new employee or just have one hard copy that gets passed around to every new hire?

My first couple of weeks here at OpenCRM were spent with a tab open on my browser at all times pointing to our own FAQ module. The module holds both the FAQs available to our customers to help me learn this new system, but also our internal processes and guidelines. I could search it to find exactly what I needed to know and check back whenever I wanted.

For example, the first support call I fielded, I had an internal FAQ open to help me know how to grade the priority and set the category so it meshed with our other tickets. I didn’t have to keep asking colleagues for this kind of simple, step-by-step information, I could save their time and mine. Besides, it meant that when I had a more theoretical question, something where I really needed to ask a real person, I didn’t feel as guilty taking up someone’s time.

If you have an employee handbook, have a think about breaking it down into bite-size segments and adding those to your FAQs. Or, if you don’t have a handbook, ask people to take 10min out every day to write up what steps they go through when adding a new contact or what guidelines they follow when creating projects or support tickets. You’ll build up an FAQ library in no time.