Every repeated question, email or phone call is a clue. Instead of seeing them as part of the job, start treating them as opportunities to make life easier for your customers and your team.
Every business has them.
Those questions customers ask time and time again.
“What time do you open?”
“Do you cover my area?”
“Can I bring my dog?”
“How much will it cost?”
Most businesses see these questions as part of the job.
I see them as opportunities.
Because every repeated question is your customers telling you that something could be clearer.
Sometimes the answer belongs on your website. Sometimes it’s better in an automated email. Sometimes it’s simply a sign that a small change could save your team hours of answering the same question over and over again.
The businesses that pay attention to these questions often make the biggest improvements. Not because they spend thousands on a new website, but because they make things a little easier for every customer.
A simple conversation changed everything
A few months ago, I launched a new website for one of my clients, a holiday cottage business.
The new website was working well. Bookings were coming in and guests had no trouble reserving their stay online.
But after a while, the office team noticed something.
They kept receiving the same phone calls.
Guests weren’t ringing because there was a problem with the website. They’d already booked their holiday.
Instead, they were asking questions like:
- “Can you remind me which cottage we’ve booked?”
- “What time can we arrive?”
- “How do we use the EV chargers?”
- “Where’s the nearest supermarket?”
None of these questions were difficult to answer.
The problem was that the team were answering the same questions over and over again.
Understanding what guests really needed
The booking process itself was working well. Guests could easily find the information they needed to choose a cottage and complete their booking.
The questions started later.
As their holiday got closer, guests naturally started thinking about the practical details of their stay. They wanted to remind themselves which cottage they’d booked, check arrival information or find out more about things like EV charging before they set off.
The information was already available, but it wasn’t always in the easiest place to find when guests needed it. By the time their holiday was approaching, many guests didn’t want to trawl through their inbox looking for old confirmation emails or revisit the website to find the information again. Picking up the phone was simply the quickest and easiest option.
That gave us a clear direction.
Rather than continuing to answer the same questions every week, we looked at how we could make that information easier for guests to access when it mattered most.
Putting the information in the right place
We looked at the questions guests were asking and made a series of small improvements.
Some information was added to the website, making it easier to find for guests who wanted to look it up.
But we also recognised that the week before arrival was when guests were most likely to have those questions.
So instead of expecting them to search for the information themselves, we updated the automated email sent seven days before arrival.
It included the practical information guests were most likely to need just before their holiday, all in one place and at exactly the right time.
The result was fewer repetitive phone calls, less time spent answering the same questions and a better experience for both the guests and the office team.
What questions are your customers asking?
The same principle applies to almost every business.
If your team keeps answering the same questions, it’s worth asking why.
It doesn’t necessarily mean your website is poor. Often, the answer is simply putting the right information in the right place at the right time.
Think about the questions you hear every week.
A repair company might be asked, “How much will it cost?”
A coffee machine supplier might hear, “Do you cover my area?”
A hotel or holiday cottage business might be asked about arrival times, parking or shopping nearby.
Every repeated question is an opportunity to make life a little easier for your customers and your team.
Sometimes the answer is updating your website. Sometimes it’s improving an automated email. Sometimes it’s as simple as adding a clearer explanation to an existing page.
The important thing is to stop seeing these questions as interruptions and start seeing them as clues.
Try this in your own business
This week, make a note of the questions your customers ask.
Not just the unusual ones, but the questions you hear again and again.
Then ask yourself:
- Should this information be easier to find on my website?
- Would it help if it was explained more clearly?
- Could I answer it before my customers need to ask?
- Is there a better point in the customer journey to share it?
You don’t always need a complete redesign or a major investment to improve your customers’ experience.
Sometimes, the biggest improvements come from listening to what your customers are already telling you.