Retailers and manufacturers are adopting Questions and Answers (Q&A) software because they see a huge increase in product- and company-related questions coming from their customers. Q&A increases conversions by allowing your product experts to provide instant answers to questioning customers.  Unlike traditional customer service, Q&A provides a display of product knowledge offering instant gratification and authentic-rich user generated content.

Such a large number of questions represents an opportunity to  offer the confidence that customers seek before buying a product.  While answering your customers’ questions might feel overwhelming to your internal team, high volume is a great sign that your customers are engaged.  There are also ways to reduce stress by distributing answering duties.

When implementing or enhancing Questions and Answers software into your website, consider these:

1. Lessen the stress on your internal team
   Implementing Q&A with the option of multiple answer sources (i.e. most popular) will lessen the stress on your internal team because it will allow the question to be directed to the most suitable expert.
2. Be readily available to answer your customers
   Product experts should be readily available to answer customers’ questions in order to increase conversion rate times. Having product experts with answers about everything in their fields, from installation to use, increases answer rates. This is crucial because if a customer doesn’t get an answer within 24 hours, it is likely that he or she will lose interest and look for an answer someplace else.
3. Encourage customer engagement
   While product experts are a reliable source for answers, sometimes customers have the perspective that a shopper is seeking. Certain questions require a bit of experience in use of the product to answer and customers may ask for more detailed information including how the product fares on a day-to-day basis. To encourage engagement you can decide to provide incentives for your top answers. By rewarding these consumers with a gift card, discount, or product samples you can incentivize users to answer more questions.
4. Provide authentic and expert information on your product
   The product experts of an internal team can provide the most trustworthy knowledge, but it is the customers that can provide the most valuable experience-based answer. From sharing their experience future customers will appreciate the authenticity provided. Allowing a product owner will, in turn, open the path for owners to become brand advocates and regular contributors.

While adopting or enhancing your Q&A software, offer multiple answer sources to customers to ensure that they receive the fastest, most authentic, and most knowledgeable answer. Q&A is highly engaging and is a fantastic opportunity to promote your brand’s authenticity.