Not all customer questions are equal. A question about your brand story from the homepage is interesting. A question about delivery costs from the checkout page is urgent, because it is often the last thing standing between a shopper and an order.
Tracking which questions stop people buying tells you exactly where your store is losing sales. Here is a checklist for doing it.
1. Record where each question was asked
What: the page a shopper was on when they asked.
Why: questions from the basket and checkout are far closer to purchase than questions from blog posts.
2. Record what they asked about
What: the topic: delivery, returns, sizing, payment, stock, product detail.
Why: lets you count which topics block purchases most.
3. Note whether they bought
What: whether the shopper completed a purchase afterwards.
Why: questions followed by abandonment are the ones to fix first.
4. Look for questions that repeat
What: the same question asked by many shoppers.
Why: a repeated blocking question is a missing piece of information on a specific page.
5. Check first-time versus returning shoppers
What: whether the shopper had ordered before.
Why: new shoppers ask trust questions; returning shoppers ask product questions. Trust questions are covered in what customers ask before their first order with you.
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6. Watch the timing
What: when blocking questions are asked.
Why: evening questions often go unanswered for hours, which makes abandonment more likely.
7. Compare against page changes
What: whether a question drops after you update a page.
Why: tells you whether your fix worked.
Where the data comes from
SpideyChat for ecommerce stores records each conversation, the page it started on and the questions it could not answer. That gives you most of the checklist without a separate tool. Setup is in the installation guide and training guide.
Fixing what you find
Most blocking questions have simple fixes: add delivery information near the price, show payment options in the basket, put fit notes on product pages. The reasoning is in shoppers who ask before buying are your best customers. Sometimes the best fix is offering help before the shopper has to ask, as described in proactive support: answering questions before customers ask.
The same method in property
Estate agents use a similar approach to find which listings attract questions but few viewings, described in measuring which listings generate real enquiries. Whether you sell products or houses, the questions tell you what your pages are missing.
A worked example
Say you find that 30 shoppers a month ask "how long does delivery take?" from the basket page, and half of them do not buy. Your delivery information is on a separate shipping page and mentioned in small print at checkout. Adding one line, "Delivered in 2 to 3 working days, free over $50," directly under the basket total would answer that question before it is asked. If even a third of those shoppers then buy, that is five extra orders a month from one sentence.
The same exercise works for each blocking question. Most fixes are that small.
A monthly habit
Once a month, list the top five questions asked from the basket and checkout. Fix the page behind the most common one. Over a few months, the questions that block purchases become rarer, and more shoppers reach the end of checkout.