# How do I answer product questions before checkout?

You answer product questions before checkout by putting a chat widget on the product page that answers from your own material: sizing, materials, compatibility, shipping and returns. The shopper asks in the moment of doubt and gets your answer in seconds. Questions outside your material go to a person, with the shopper email, so the sale is not lost.

Last updated: October 2026

## Why this happens

A shopper with a question is a shopper about to leave. Forrester found half of US online adults abandon a purchase when they cannot find a quick answer. The question is usually small: does it fit a 15-inch laptop, is it machine washable, will it ship before Friday.

The answer is on your site somewhere, in a size guide, a spec table or a policy page. It is not where the shopper is looking, and an email reply the next day arrives after they bought elsewhere.

So the answer has to live on the product page, in the chat, and it has to come from your material rather than a guess.

## Steps

1. **Collect the pre-sale questions you already get.** Read a month of chats and emails that came before an order. Group them: fit, materials, compatibility, delivery, returns. These are the articles.
2. **Write short answer articles and a size or spec guide.** One article per group, answer first. Put the size chart and the spec table in as text, not only as an image, so the AI can quote them.
3. **Install the widget and keep it on product pages.** The launcher sits on every page. On product pages it is where the doubt happens, so that is where it earns its keep.
4. **Let it answer from your articles only.** A shopper asks "will this fit a 15-inch laptop" and the widget answers from your spec article. If the article does not say, it says it does not know and offers to pass the question on, rather than guessing a dimension.
5. **Turn the unanswered ones into product page copy.** Every ticket that came from a product page is a question your page did not answer. Add the line to the page and to the article. The best question is the one nobody needs to ask.

## Facts, with sources

| Fact | Value | Source |
| --- | --- | --- |
| US online adults who abandon a purchase when they cannot find a quick answer | Half | [Forrester, Kate Leggett](https://www.forrester.com/blogs/retailers-without-chat-a-missed-opportunity/), March 2018 |
| Customers who rate an immediate response as important or very important | 90% | [HubSpot Research](https://blog.hubspot.com/service/customer-service-standards), updated May 2025 |
| Customers who want to resolve as many issues as possible on their own | 69% | [Zendesk, self-service research](https://www.zendesk.com/blog/help-center/self-service/self-service-support-companies-need-right/), July 2021 |
| DeskCrew free plan | 10 AI answers and about 100 conversations a month, no card | [DeskCrew pricing](https://deskcrew.io/pricing), October 2026 |

## What to expect

**It knows your material, not your inventory.** The widget answers from what you published. Stock levels, a specific order or a custom quote go to a person. That is deliberate: a wrong "yes, in stock" costs more than a handoff.

**Image-only size charts are invisible to it.** If your size guide is a picture, the AI cannot read it. Paste the table as text once and it can.

**Ten free answers a month.** Enough to prove it on one product line. A store with daily pre-sale questions needs Pro at $29 a month flat, with 150 answers included.

## FAQ

### Does a chat widget on the product page hurt conversion?

A widget that answers hurts nothing; a widget that collects an email and goes quiet does. This one answers from your articles in seconds and only opens a ticket when it cannot. It loads after the page renders, inside its own container, so it does not slow the page or interfere with your theme or checkout.

### Can it answer compatibility questions, like "does this work with X"?

Yes, when your article lists what works with what. Write a compatibility article as plain statements: "Fits iPhone 15 and 15 Pro, not the Pro Max." The widget quotes the matching line. For combinations you have not listed, it says so and passes the question to you instead of inventing a yes.

### What about questions on price, discounts or stock?

Price and discount policy can be articles: "Student discount is 10% with a valid email." Stock levels are not, because they change by the hour and a wrong answer costs a sale and a refund. Those go to a person as a ticket with the product and the shopper email already attached to it.

### Will it work on Shopify, WooCommerce and others?

Yes. Shopify installs through the DeskCrew app, WooCommerce through the WordPress plugin, and every other platform through one script tag in the theme. The widget, the articles and the ticket inbox are the same on all of them, so a store on two platforms runs one setup and one set of answers.

### How do I know it is helping?

Count two things after a month: pre-sale questions that reached the inbox, and chats that ended with an answer. The first should fall and the second should rise. Every unanswered chat becomes a ticket you can read, so the list of articles still to write comes from the same place as the measurement.

## Related

- [DeskCrew for ecommerce](https://deskcrew.io/for/ecommerce)
- [AI support widget](https://deskcrew.io/ai-support-widget)
- [Shopify helpdesk app](https://deskcrew.io/integrations/shopify)
- [Automate shipping and returns questions](https://deskcrew.io/how-to/answer-shipping-and-returns-questions-automatically)

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Source: https://deskcrew.io/how-to/answer-product-questions-before-checkout