Three Reasons to read Support FAQs

There is existing content on market research (e.g., this Hubspot guide). Based on my experiences in due diligence/market expansion research, I strongly believe in reading support pages when doing market research. Support pages are a great way to glean insights and verify information. I write about the three reasons why below.

Credit: Photo by Firmbee.com on Unsplash

Reason #1: Support pages shine light on your research blind spots

Good support pages often have top topics or questions, covering common questions from customers.

If you’re a business buyer, FAQs highlight the top potential issues for your integration, or question to ask other providers as you do a comparison. You will see topics what you have not considered at all, or considered but did not fully digest. Support FAQs help refine your decision.

If you’re doing due dilligence for an investment/acquisition, FAQs help you figure out what else you did not know about the industry, and further questions for your target and their customers.

I recommend researching topics like:

• How to set up and go live: How easy or hard it is to get a sandbox account, are the API docs already available or do they require “contact sales” to access? I’ve found that if the API docs are not publicly available and require sales contact, the company is likely less tech forward.
• List pricing: Pricing is a signal of transparency (deeper dive in reason #2). I’ve encountered companies where FX pricing is neither on the website or in the contracts, and have viewed that as a signal to ask detailed questions about fees.
• “Why” questions, like “Why [insert a problem common to the industry]?”. For example, why was my card declined, why did KYC fail, why did crypto not reach my wallet address?

Reason #2: Support pages demonstrate transparency levels

Transparency is important. Here are a couple of topics I scrutinize.

• Pricing page: Do I understand what this pricing is? With this information, could I build a simple model to figure out how much the cost of ownershp is? Are there hidden fees? If the product (like an on ramp) is consumer facing, I have higher expectations for transparency as they need customers to trust them.
• Regulatory/compliance: For regulated industries, I look for pages on licensing, regulation and supported businesses (or conversely “prohibited businesses”). If a company says they have X license in Y country, I cross check on the country list of licenses, or if the country’s regulator has published notices on that company. I’ve noticed that some companies assert that they are regulatory compliant (especially verbally), but when I check regulator/licensing authority pages — they’re not in it. Trust, but verify.

Reason #3: Support pages shows you how much the company invests in their customer support.

I check how much content there is (roughly) and how recently it’s been updated for top topics. Some scenarios could be:

(A) There’s some content, somewhat recently updated, but it’s not much. If a start up, they’re probably still growing out their support muscle. If the content is growing and answers are clear enough, it can give you a sense if the company is investing in support and moving in the right direction.

(B) There’s not much content, and it does not appear to have been recently updated. Do check on how you’ll get help later as you start using the product.

(C) Support pages are clear, detailed and updated. That is great. Doesn’t mean the company is perfect, but it at least means you could get some answers.

If the support pages aren’t clear to you, they are likely unclear to others too. The business will get a large inflow of support questions, which is hard to manage and slows down response time. If the business is handling your funds, or crypto, you want them to respond quickly.

Final thoughts

It’s reassuring when support FAQs have clear answers to common problems. No one expects a business to be perfect (customer support is hard). The point is assessing if the business is invested in providing sensible answers to common questions.

Reading support pages is not the only thing you have to do for market research. But if you’re not using support FAQs during a due dilligence process for software buying, investing or acquiring a company, analyzing a market, you’re missing out.