Klariti

Something I learned last quarter is that FAQ pages are almost always wrong. They answer the questions the company thinks customers will ask, not the questions customers actually ask. So people read the FAQ, don't find their answer, and call support in frustration.

A support manager told me about their frustration: "We spent weeks writing the FAQ, but 70% of our inbound calls are about things we already documented. The problem isn't that information is missing—it's that customers can't find it the way they search."

That's the hidden cost of a bad FAQ. It creates more work, not less.

I spent time with a manufacturing company recently, and they showed me their product factsheet. It was pages of dense specifications, charts, and compliance certifications—the kind of document that puts people to sleep. Then I asked a simple question: "What problem does this product solve?" The team looked blank.

That's when it hit me. Most factsheets are written like instruction manuals for internal use. They list specs, dimensions, and certifications, but they never explain why anyone should care. And that's a problem, because factsheets are often the first thing customers see when they're trying to understand what your product actually does.

A friend in sales told me their biggest frustration was customers asking basic questions already answered in the factsheet—but written in such technical language that nobody bothered to read it.

The project kickoff went well. Everyone left the room nodding. You sent around the action plan the following Monday — clean layout, responsibilities assigned, deadlines in the cells. Two weeks later, half the tasks hadn't moved. The people assigned to them weren't confused or lazy. They just didn't understand why their piece mattered, so when something more urgent landed on their desk, the action plan lost.

That's not a motivation problem. That's a document problem.

Most action plans are essentially decorated to-do lists. Task. Owner. Due date. Repeat. They capture what needs to happen but stay completely silent on why each step connects to the next, and why any of it matters enough to protect from the friction of a normal working week.