A Simple Exercise in Empathy to Boost Online Sales

I was working on the early planning of a new web site recently, and I was struck by a realization that I think may prove helpful to many of you who follow this blog.

As I have said countless times, effective online selling hinges on your ability to climb into your prospect’s head (empathize) and speak to her in the way she needs to be spoken to in order to move her to action. You have to anticipate her questions and make answers available in the right places – coinciding with her own buying process.

I have done this dozens of times now, but as I worked through the process today, something useful occurred to me.

When people sit down to think through the content of their new web site, the process often goes something like this. (This is especially true in smaller businesses where the web site doesn’t have a dedicated person/team attending to it.)

Step One: Identify the pages that all sites seem to need – Home, About Us, Contact Us, Products/Services, FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)… you know the ones.

Step Two: Identify the pages that are unique to the company. Often these pages show up on sub-navigation underneath of the standard pages.

Step Three: Assign each page to someone on the team to write the content.

Step Four: (often overlooked): Review and edit the content to be sure that it is error-free and has a consistent voice.

Here’s the problem.

Empathy for your audience often never surfaces in this process – with ONE exception.  The FAQ page.

There are two types of FAQ pages. There are the FAQs that are really just softball questions that you lob up to yourself in order to make the case for buying your product. And there are FAQs that actually resolve questions that prospects really have.

I would argue that you want your FAQ to generally fall in the latter category.  The case for buying your product should be made in the more prominent site copy. If you are pinning your hopes to making the sale on the FAQ page – forget about it.

That’s not to say that the FAQ can’t reinforce your selling points. Sure, lob yourself a few softballs if you like. But also provide answers to the questions that people actually need to resolve in order to move to the next step in the buying process.

The reason I raise the issue at all is simply this.  Developing the FAQ page is too often the only time that the people building web sites ever really attempt to empathize with their audience.

Creating a quality FAQ forces you to empathize. God forbid – you may even ask your sales and customer service people what your prospects are really asking.

Let me propose a simple exercise that without a doubt will help you to squeeze more sales from your web site.

Invest some serious energy in your FAQ page.  Really think hard. And enlist the help of the people who actually touch your customers and prospects to define and articulate the questions that your prospects bring to their buying processes. Write down these questions and carefully craft your answers.

Now… PRETEND YOU HAD TO DELETE YOUR FAQ PAGE.

That’s right.  You have to answer these questions in your site copy… in your product descriptions… through the course of your checkout process. You no longer have your FAQ crutch to fall back upon.

How does that change your site?

Certainly there is a place on most every site for an FAQ page, so don’t delete yours – even after you complete this exercise. But consider the empathy that a good FAQ page demands of its author, and bring that empathy to each page on your site.

What are the questions that your prospects must resolve in order to take action?

Go answer them!