Grouped questions that open on a tap and filter as you type, sent in place of repeat emails.
Every club, venue and small business answers the same dozen emails each season. An FAQ page is those answers written once, where people can find them. Cedar Basin Swim Club is invented, but its seventeen questions are the kind a summer swim team's parents send. One limit to know: the page can't take in a new question, so it tells readers who to write to.
Who it's for
Volunteers and staff at small organizations with a season or an event coming: a swim club before registration opens, a summer camp, a co-working space, a conference. Send it with the first announcement, then answer later emails with the link.
It's the wrong tool for anything personal. A parent asking about their own child's place or an overdue fee needs a reply from a person.
What a good one contains
- Questions in the asker's words. "Can we get a refund if it doesn't work out?" is what a parent types. "Refund policy" is what a committee writes.
- The figure in the first sentence of the answer. "$185 for your first swimmer and $160 for each brother or sister." Nobody should need a second document to get the number.
- Three or four groups, in the order questions come up. Signing up, Practices, Meets, then suits and contact. A parent in March isn't asking about July yet.
- The dates everyone needs, at the very top. Five of them, so plenty of visitors never have to open a question.
- A filter that reads the answers too. "Thunder" isn't in any question, yet it finds the one about bad weather. When three or fewer match, the sample opens them for you. What a parent types stays on their own screen.
- The awkward ones. Help with fees, refunds, what a disqualification means. People hesitate to email about these, which is why they belong on the page.
- Who to ask when it isn't here. Three names by topic, and one way to reach all of them.
- A "checked on" date. February 22, in the opening lines. A dated answer is easier to trust in June.
Collect before you write
Don't invent the questions. Go through last season's inbox and the group chat and copy out what people asked, in their words. Fifteen to twenty is plenty. Past that, people stop scanning and email you anyway.
Then check each answer with whoever owns it. The coach knows practice times, and the registrar knows the refund dates. One wrong time on an FAQ sends twenty families to the pool an hour early.
When something changes mid-season, edit the page in the conversation where you made it and move the date. The sample closes by saying which one wins if the page and the weekly email disagree.
How to send it
As an open link. An FAQ only works if people can get to it. Put the link in your email signature, your auto-reply and the group chat, and let anyone pass it on.
Every page you publish gets one link that opens in any browser. You choose who can open it: anyone with the link, anyone with the password, or only the people and company domains you name, who sign in with Google or Microsoft. Change the page later and the link stays the same.
