Question handling
How to get here, written so somebody can follow it
An address is not directions. The person asking has a map already; what they do not have is which door to use, where to leave a car, whether the entrance has a step, and which of the three nearby stops actually helps. This is some of the most useful material a local business can index and it is almost universally missing.
What they are really asking
When I actually arrive, will I be able to park, find the door and get inside without a problem.
- where are you
- is there parking
- is parking free
- which entrance do i use
- is it wheelchair accessible
- whats the nearest station
- can i park outside for a delivery
- is there disabled parking
- how do i find you, the postcode takes me to the wrong place
- is there a lift
The material that answers it
An assistant is only as good as the document behind it, and for this question the document usually exists but is written in the wrong shape. What each one has to contain to be answerable:
| Arrival written as instructions | The turn people miss, the building it is next to, what the door looks like, which floor. Postcodes and pins routinely land people in the wrong yard, so write the last hundred metres in words. This is the paragraph customers thank you for. |
|---|---|
| Parking with all the qualifiers | Where, how many spaces, what it costs, the time limit, whether there is a permit or a code, what happens in the evening, and the nearest alternative when it is full. Half of a parking answer is useless: free parking with a two hour limit is a different fact from free parking. |
| The step free route, specifically | Not a yes or no on accessibility. Which entrance, whether there is a ramp or a lift, how heavy the door is, whether a threshold has a lip, where the accessible toilet is, and whether somebody should ring ahead. Vague accessibility claims are worse than none because people plan around them. |
| Public transport by name | The actual stops and lines, the walking time, and which exit to use at a station with several. Nearby transport links is not information. |
| Anything that changes on some days | Market days, street closures, event parking, a barrier that is down at weekends, a car park that becomes chargeable after six. These are what turn a normally easy arrival into a bad one. |
How to handle it
Give the last part of the journey, not the whole address
The visitor's mapping app handles the driving. What it cannot do is tell them the entrance is round the back, that the sign still shows the previous business, or that the car park entrance is on a different street.
Write the material from the perspective of somebody standing outside looking confused, because that is who is typing.
Answer parking with the conditions attached
Yes there is parking is an answer that gets people fined. The full answer is where, cost, duration, restriction, and what to do when it is full.
Include the time limit in the same sentence as the price. Somebody planning a two hour visit needs to know before they arrive, not from a windscreen.
Treat access as a route, not a label
Somebody asking whether you are accessible is planning a journey they cannot easily abandon. The useful reply describes the actual route: this entrance, this ramp, this lift, this door width, this is who to ask for help.
In many places accessibility information carries a duty as well as being good practice, and being specific is what makes it usable. If some part of your building is not accessible, say so plainly rather than answering yes and leaving somebody stranded in a doorway.
Name the stops and the walk
Which station, which line, which exit, how many minutes on foot and whether the walk involves a hill or a crossing. This is the level of detail that decides whether somebody comes by train.
For multi-site businesses, always attach the answer to a named location, because directions to the wrong branch are worse than no directions.
When it stops being an answer
Arrangements that need somebody to agree to them
Reserving an accessible space, arranging help on arrival, getting a barrier opened, bringing a large vehicle. These are requests rather than questions, and they need a person and usually some notice.
Deliveries, loading and trade access
Where a van can stop, whether there is a goods entrance, what the restrictions are, who to ask for. Getting this wrong wastes a driver's slot and sometimes costs a fine, and the details usually live with operations rather than on a website.
Anything about a site the material does not cover
A new branch, a temporary location, an event you are attending. If it is not indexed the assistant should refuse rather than describe the nearest site it knows about, because a plausible answer about the wrong building is the worst possible outcome here.
How this one goes wrong
The address that was correct and useless
Somebody asks how to find you and receives your postal address, which they already had. They arrive at the pin, which is on the wrong side of a building, cannot see a sign because the entrance is on the side street, and either ring you from the pavement or give up.
The cost is the appointment that started ten minutes late, or the customer who went somewhere easier. None of it is a technology problem: it is a paragraph nobody has written. Writing that paragraph is one of the cheapest improvements available to a business with a front door.
The same question, trade by trade
The pattern above holds everywhere. The wording, the escalation line and the material behind it do not, so there is a page per trade.
- For a dental clinicThe step at the front, the surgeries upstairs and where to leave the car. Arrival detail a practice has usually never written down.
- For a medical practiceA surgery often shares a building with other services. Reception desks, branch days, the blood clinic elsewhere and permit parking.
- For a veterinary clinicParking matters here because a nervous dog cannot be walked across a road. Arrival detail worth writing down for leads and carriers.
- For a physiotherapy clinicStairs above a shop, a rehab gym at another address, and parking distance for somebody with a back injury.
- For a opticianA test, a frame appointment and a collection are three separate trips. What to say about the car park and the loading bay.
- For a pharmacyThe step at the door, the loading bay, the entrance round the back. Getting to a pharmacy matters more than most trades.
- For a law firmDepartments sit in different buildings, originals have to be produced in person, and half these messages are really about a hearing venue.
- For a accounting firmWhere to park to carry a year of paperwork in, whether anything can be posted, and what happens to originals left at a door.
- For a mortgage brokerMost mortgage advice never happens in a room, so where are you usually means do I have to come in and where do original documents go.
- For a estate agencyA permit bay is a particular about the property, not a facility of the office. Two questions wearing the same six words.
- For a recruitment agencyRegistration is at the branch, the interview is at the client and the work is elsewhere again. Which address may be given out, and when.
- For a furniture retailerThe clearance floor is not the showroom and the goods door is not the front door. Say which before somebody drives to the wrong one.
- For a electronics retailerThe real question is whether it fits the car. The take back point for old equipment is rarely the same door as the till.
- For a garden centreTrolleys, gravel, accessible bays and a car park that fills by ten on a spring Saturday. What a map pin does not tell anybody.
- For a bike shopMost people arrive on the thing they came about. Getting a bike through the door, walking a broken one in, and loading a car outside.
- For a restaurantThe multi storey locks before the late sitting finishes, the bay outside is a loading bay, and the evening tariff starts on the hour.
- For a hotelHeight barriers, charges, reservable spaces and how far the station really is. All published, and all asked late at night.
- For a holiday rentalOne allocated space, a lane a long car cannot manage, the shop four miles off, and a postcode that drops people in the wrong field.
- For a gymA shared car park with a maximum stay shorter than a swim and a class, plus the entrance a member uses when the desk is empty.
- For a salon or spaA two hour bay does not cover a full head. Which car park to use, where the entrance actually is, and the stairs to the first floor.
- For a universityStudent parking is usually restricted, the shuttle covers the gap, and post to halls needs its own address. Publishable, rarely published.
- For a private schoolThe route and its pick up points decide whether a family applies at all. The two gates, the barrier and signing in come after.
- For a driving schoolA driving school has a patch, not an address. Coverage, pick up points and the test centre that shapes what gets taught.
- For a plumbing and heating firmA van needs to unload near the door, and a flat with the meter in a communal cupboard needs somebody who can open it.
- For a electrical contractorExternal work needs the van within reach of the cable run, often a suspended bay, sometimes a tower. None of that is a convenience.
- For a removals companyA bay suspension or dispensation is applied for weeks ahead, costs money, and is needed at the old address and at the new one.
- For a car dealershipTwo entrances at one address. The spaces at the front are cars for sale, and service reception is round the side behind the workshop.
Questions
- Is this really worth indexing?
- It is one of the few intents where the material barely exists anywhere, which makes it high value rather than low. Arrival, parking and access questions come from people who have already decided to visit, so a bad answer costs you somebody who was coming.
- Can it give turn by turn directions?
- It answers from what you index, so it will give whatever your arrival instructions say. It is not a mapping service and should not attempt to construct a route from an arbitrary starting point. Write the last part of the journey well and let the map do the rest.
- How specific should the accessibility information be?
- As specific as you can make it, including the parts that are not good. Somebody who is told there are two steps at the front and a level entrance at the side can plan. Somebody told the building is accessible, who then finds the steps, cannot.
Keep reading
- Handling order statusThe most asked question in retail support and the one a document-based assistant cannot answer. What it can do instead, and where handover sits.
- Handling shipping and deliveryCut-off times, zones, timescales, public holidays and duties on international orders. The material exists on most sites, it is just buried.
- Handling returns and exchangesWindow, condition, who pays postage, exclusions. Faulty and unwanted are two different processes with two different sets of rights.
- Every question typeHandling patterns for the questions every support inbox gets.
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.