By business type
Answering for a course you sell at a distance
Selling a course online means answering two very different populations from the same box. Before purchase, people want to know what is actually included, whether it is recognised anywhere, and whether they can get their money back. After purchase, they want their login to work and their certificate to arrive. The pre sale half is where the compliance sits, and the post sale half is where the volume is.
What people actually type
Not the questions on your FAQ page. These are the phrasings that arrive in a chat window, lowercase and unpunctuated, and the material has to answer them in those words rather than in yours.
- how long do i get access for
- is this course accredited
- can i get a refund if i change my mind
- is it self paced or are there set dates
- do i get a certificate at the end
- can i pay in instalments
- the videos will not play on my laptop
- i never got my login email
- how many hours is the course
- is there a deadline to finish
- can my employer be invoiced
- how far through the course am i
What to feed it
In rough order of how much work each one takes off the front desk. Every one of these is a document you almost certainly already have.
| The full curriculum with its format and length | Module by module, what form each part takes (video, live session, reading, assessment), and the realistic time each one takes. Buyers are working out whether it fits their week, and a marketing summary that says twelve modules answers none of that. |
|---|---|
| Access terms in writing | How long access lasts, whether it is permanent or a fixed period, what happens at the end, whether an extension can be bought, and whether material added later is included. This generates more disputes after purchase than anything else, so index the exact terms rather than the sales page wording. |
| The refund and cancellation policy | Your cooling off wording, the deadline, what happens once a learner has started the material, and how a refund is requested. In many countries a course bought online carries a statutory cancellation window, sometimes with specific rules about digital content that has already been accessed, so this has to be the compliant policy rather than a paraphrase. |
| What the certificate or accreditation actually is | The exact status: a certificate of completion you issue yourself, a credential recognised by a named body, or continuing professional development hours accepted by a particular profession. Write it precisely, because the difference matters enormously to a buyer and overstating it is a claim you have to defend. |
| Cohort dates and any live elements | Start dates, live session times with the time zone stated, whether sessions are recorded, and what happens to somebody who misses one. Time zone is the detail most often missing and most often the reason for a refund request. |
| Technical requirements and the failures you already see | Supported browsers, whether anything needs downloading, bandwidth for video, and your existing fixes for the problems that already fill your inbox: the missing welcome message, the wrong email address typed at checkout, the corporate network blocking video. |
What has to reach a person
Anything about one learner's own progress or access
How far through they are, whether their assessment was marked, whether their certificate has been issued, why their login does not work. The assistant cannot see your learning platform and must not imply it can, unless you separately connect a source that holds it.
The productive handling is to explain how the thing works in general, then take their name and email and pass it to support with the detail already in the message, so the reply that follows is the answer rather than a request for more information.
A refund request itself
The assistant can state the policy, the window and the process precisely, which resolves most of these. It cannot decide a case, and it must not say anything that reads as agreeing to or refusing a refund, because in a distance sale the buyer may have a statutory right sitting underneath your policy.
Have it quote the policy, then collect the request as an enquiry so a person makes the decision on the record.
Whether the course will qualify somebody for a job or a licence
Buyers ask whether the certificate will let them practise, register, or satisfy an employer's requirement. That depends on a regulator or an employer rather than on you, and it varies by country. The assistant may state exactly what the credential is and who recognises it, and stop there.
Invoicing, purchase orders and employer funded places
Corporate buyers ask about invoices, purchase order numbers, tax treatment and multi seat pricing. The assistant can describe the process you publish, but each of these enquiries is a sale, and sales should reach a person while the buyer is still interested.
The wording when it cannot help
This is the message the assistant returns when nothing in the material covers the question. It is written by you rather than generated, which matters here more than anywhere: it is the sentence a stranger reads at the worst moment.
I cannot see your account, your progress or your certificate, and I cannot approve a refund. I can tell you exactly what the course includes, how long access lasts, how the cancellation policy works and what the certificate is. Leave your name and the email you signed up with and the team will pick it up.
It names what it cannot do, gives the route that can, and offers to take a message. A refusal that only apologises leaves the person exactly where they started.
Rules and duties that shape the answer
Distance selling gives buyers cancellation rights
In many countries a consumer buying online has a statutory period in which to cancel, and for digital content there are usually specific conditions about consenting to immediate access and what that does to the right. Those rules sit above a friendlier or a harsher policy on your sales page.
Index the compliant version and let the assistant quote it. An assistant repeating a marketing line that contradicts the statutory position creates the dispute rather than preventing it.
Accreditation language is a claim, not a description
Words like accredited, certified, approved and recognised carry specific meanings in many markets and are enforceable as advertising claims. Naming the awarding or recognising body is safe. Using the word alone, with nothing behind it, is the pattern regulators look for.
Course content changes but the sales page rarely does
Providers update modules constantly and update the outline occasionally. If the assistant is answering from an outline describing a module you removed, it is selling something that no longer exists, and the buyer finds out after paying.
Whatever you index has to be the material you update when the course changes, which for most providers means the curriculum page rather than the launch copy.
Never, whatever the documents say
Out of bounds
- How far through the course a particular learner is.
- Whether a specific refund will be granted.
- Whether the certificate satisfies a regulator, employer or licensing body.
- Anything describing the course as accredited without naming who by.
- Whether access can be extended for one learner as a special case.
Playbooks for this trade
One page per recurring question, written for a online course rather than in general. Each carries the phrasings, the material that answers them, a reply worth copying, and the line where it has to stop.
- Course refunds, where your policy is not the only rule that appliesDistance selling rules and immediate access do not sit comfortably together. State both, and the exception you rely on.
- Cancelling a course subscription, and the access question underneath itThe question underneath a cancellation is what a learner loses and when. Answer that plainly and the churn conversation improves.
- Access problems on a course platform, and which ones are answerableWrong email, expired invite, a course bought by an employer. Three access problems with three different answers.
- When the video will not play, and what an assistant can usefully sayMost playback failures come from the network, the browser or a work firewall. Here is the order to check them in.
- A learner who paid and cannot get in, handled in one stepSomebody who paid and cannot get in is the most urgent conversation on a course site. Route it in one step.
- Two prices for one curriculum, and the difference is a dateWhy a cohort costs more than the self paced version, what lifetime access is worth, and how a three payment plan changes the total.
- The receipt has a person's name and finance will not accept itA learner paid, then finance wants a document with the company name and number on it. What can be changed after checkout and what cannot.
- The second of three payments declined and the course stopped openingThree payments toward one total is not a subscription. What a decline does to access, and the retry window a learner needs the date of.
- The reset worked and the course was still not thereTwo addresses, one purchase. Why resetting the password rarely helps when a course was bought at one email and is read at another.
- Delete everything, except the thing that proves I did itErase me and keep my certificate do not sit together. What a provider holds afterwards, and why lifetime access ends with the record.
- The request is nearly always captions, and the answer is per moduleMost accessibility requests here are about captions on older modules. What to publish about what is captioned and what is machine generated.
- Paid on a Sunday night, and now whatWhere to start, how much of a week it needs, and getting live session times into a calendar in the right time zone.
- Asked before buying, and a wrong answer becomes a refundA tablet at home, a locked down work laptop, a phone on a commute. What to publish before purchase rather than after the refund window.
- The sales page is fine and the course will not loadThe page that sells and the platform that serves fail separately. What may be said when a session starts in an hour.
- One person, one purchase, and a clause they have just read properlyNot what I expected, a module withdrawn, an instructor who never replies. Where a learner complaint goes, and what is never conceded.
- The list is for a date, and the material is available nowJoining the list is a notification, not a place. And the self paced version is on sale today, which is what half the list actually wants.
- The money left the account and nothing arrivedThere is nothing to ship, so this is a missing welcome email. The reasons it did not arrive, in the order they turn out to be true.
- Six places, and a spreadsheet from somebody in securityA small training purchase can attract a full vendor assessment. What a course business can answer from published pages, and what it cannot.
Questions
- Can it fix a login problem?
- It can walk somebody through the causes you already know about, such as a mistyped email at checkout or a welcome message caught in a spam filter. It cannot reset anything or look up an account, so the endpoint for a genuine access failure is a handover with the learner's email already captured.
- Is it safe to let it answer refund questions at all?
- Yes, if what it reads is the compliant policy rather than the sales page. Quoting a policy is the most useful thing it can do here, because most refund messages are really requests to understand the window. Deciding a case is a person's job and should stay one.
- What should a provider index first?
- The curriculum with module lengths, the access terms, and the cancellation policy. Those three cover the pre sale questions that stop a purchase, and all three should already exist as documents rather than as claims on a landing page.
- Will it know which cohort somebody is in?
- No. It can list the published cohort dates and describe how joining works, but it has no view of enrolments and should not imply otherwise. Where a learner needs their own dates confirmed, it should take their email and hand over.
Keep reading
- For a universityApplicants and enrolled students ask different things. What a university assistant can answer about entry, fees and visas, and what it must never predict.
- For a private schoolAdmissions timelines, fees, bursaries and uniform lists are safe ground for a school assistant. Anything about a named pupil or applicant is not.
- For a driving schoolLesson prices, block booking, instructor coverage and what a learner needs before a first lesson, without claiming a pass rate or judging readiness.
- Every business typeWhat an assistant has to know before it can answer for a trade.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.