0.47-Point Drop in Inquiry Rate: How SpaceMarket Built a FAQ Users Actually Use

SpaceMarket Inc.

Marketplace·1-500 employees·Customer Support

0.47-Point Drop in Inquiry Rate: How SpaceMarket Built a FAQ Users Actually Use

At a glance

• Inquiry rate decreased 0.47 percentage points after Helpfeel introduction
• Self-resolvable inquiry ratio reduced 2.3 percentage points
• Six-person CS team went from spending all day on inquiries to strategic work
• Guest vs. Host content clearly tagged for targeted self-service

The Challenge

SpaceMarket operates a platform where users rent and lend spaces by the hour. As the product grew, so did inquiry volume. The six-person Customer Success team was spending virtually all day, every day handling contacts. Most inquiries came from Guests asking about reservations, questions they could have resolved themselves by checking the FAQ or that only required a template response.

The team had already launched an internal project to optimize FAQ content within their existing tool. The project stalled. They were looking at page view metrics through analytics, but without specialist knowledge to interpret the data and act on it, improvements couldn't be sustained or properly evaluated. Reducing self-resolvable inquiries became a key KPI, but the path forward wasn't clear.

Why Helpfeel

SpaceMarket considered chatbot solutions but ruled them out. A chatbot risked redirecting questions that should go directly from Guests to Hosts (questions about the specific space) to the platform operator instead.

Helpfeel met the team's non-negotiables: superior search performance and the ability to clearly tag each piece of content as Guest-facing or Host-facing, making it easier for users to find information relevant to their role. The monthly review meetings and ongoing support were equally important. The team lacked in-house FAQ management expertise, and Helpfeel's accompaniment model ensured the tool wouldn't just be implemented and left alone.

What They Did

• Redesigned the FAQ structure from instruction manual to one-question-one-answer format. Early in implementation, Helpfeel's team pointed out that SpaceMarket's original pages were dense with information the team wanted to convey, resulting in long-form content users would abandon without reading. The shift to one-question-one-answer with answers visible at a glance changed the team's entire mindset around content creation.

• Refocused from "getting users to the FAQ" to "getting users to resolve their questions." The monthly data-driven review sessions helped the team recognize that page visits don't matter if users aren't resolving their questions. Understanding who was using the FAQ, where they were dropping off, and why refocused efforts on content quality and problem resolution.

• Concentrated improvements on high-traffic Guest-facing pages. Data analysis revealed that most traffic came from Guest inquiries, so the team prioritized those pages for redesign.

• Created targeted content to route appropriate questions to Hosts. Search data showed many Guests were looking up day-of-visit logistics like garbage disposal or parking availability. These questions can only be answered by the individual Host, not the platform operator. The team created a dedicated page explaining what types of questions should be directed to the Host and engineered it so that various search keywords related to day-of logistics would surface this page.

Results

SpaceMarket measures inquiry load as an "inquiry rate," the number of inquiries generated per number of users who completed a booking.

After introducing Helpfeel, the inquiry rate decreased by 0.47 percentage points. The share of total inquiries concerning topics users could have resolved on their own decreased by 2.3 percentage points.

At the time of the interview, the team noted that approximately half of all inquiries were still on topics users should be able to self-resolve, indicating significant room for further improvement.

"Improving a FAQ requires not just the service operator's own perspective. It requires a professional, user-centric viewpoint. When you work with a product every day, it becomes very difficult to see it through the eyes of someone encountering it for the first time. The monthly data-driven advice from Helpfeel's professionals is what makes improvements actually happen."

Ayako Kikuchi, Customer Success Group

Looking Ahead

SpaceMarket's near-term goal is reducing the share of self-resolvable inquiries still coming in as contacts. The key is designing a site structure where users can reach the answer they need on their first search attempt, and where even if the first search doesn't immediately succeed, users can navigate the FAQ and find their way to a resolution independently.

A longer-term ambition is making the FAQ useful for new employees when they join. New staff are closer in perspective to users than veterans. If even they can resolve questions quickly and easily with the FAQ, it becomes a genuinely user-friendly resource. The team plans to continue working with Helpfeel's ongoing support to build the FAQ structure best suited to SpaceMarket as a service.

“Improving a FAQ requires not just the service operator's own perspective. It requires a professional, user-centric viewpoint. When you work with a product every day, it becomes very difficult to see it through the eyes of someone encountering it for the first time. The monthly data-driven advice from Helpfeel's professionals is what makes improvements actually happen.”

— Ayako Kikuchi, Customer Success Group