"Where is my order?" and the 5 questions eating your support time

If you added up every support message your store gets, you'd notice something almost funny: it's the same handful of questions, over and over. The wording changes. The questions don't.

Five questions many stores hear repeatedly

The exact mix varies, but common themes include:

1. "Where's my order — and do you even ship to me?" Delivery is the big one. Everyone wants it fast, and nobody wants to fall for a product only to discover at checkout that you don't ship to where they live.
2. "What's your return policy?" Can I send it back if it's not right?
3. "Which size, colour or version should I get?" The classic pre-purchase wobble.
4. "What's this actually for, and how do I use it?" Purpose and how-to.
5. "Will this solve my problem — what do I get out of it?" The benefit question, which is really the whole decision.

Notice what they have in common: the answers already exist. They're on your product pages, your shipping page, your policies. The customer just couldn't find them fast enough — or didn't feel like hunting.

Why "it's on the FAQ page" isn't enough

You can have every answer written down and still lose the sale. People don't want to leave the product they're looking at, open your FAQ, scan it, and work out whether their situation counts. In the few seconds they're deciding to buy, that much friction is enough to close the tab. The answer has to come to them — where they are, right now — not wait to be found.

How to make them answer themselves

This is exactly where a support assistant can help. Trained on approved store information, it can answer common questions in the customer's language and pass exceptions to a person. The examples and rules should be tested against your real delivery, returns and product information before the assistant goes live.