So you build a website, make it look great, perfect your user paths, have amazing offers and do your marketing. Still – no one enquires about your business. You must be doing something wrong, you think?
It might surprise you that a lot of business is lost from simply not checking a contact form is working.
So much effort is allocated on moulding a website and marketing it correctly that sometimes, one of the most important yet simple parts of your website pages, can be overlooked.
The contact form for many websites is the gateway for new customers expressing interest, the device that captures leads and seeds new business. It is useful for handling complaints as well as sorting out a range of customer issues.
If the contact form page does not work, you lose twice. Once on not having the message from the interested party and secondly on suffering a damaged reputation in an instant. People judge websites harshly for faults because they reflect the business competence. It’s a very easy thing to overlook but has potential consequences to your company.
Bad Form For Your Reputation
If you have ever used a contact form with fields to fill in and had no response then it’s likely it made you feel there was no one manning the other end, or the business did not care. If it’s obviously broken then this is equally bad, as it draws attention to the technical fault.
Testing is so important. Make sure you test the contact form page or, even better, get friends to test it and feedback to you. Do this at regular intervals in case a fault develops, or at least check if you suddenly have no enquiries, which may be at odds with your usual pattern of interaction.
Always Make Contact Possible
It is a good idea to have a back-up way of getting in touch, if not a phone number then an email address so that all is not lost if someone really does want to get into contact.
Make a pledge on the contact form to respond within a time bracket, say 48 hours, so people know there is an issue if it takes longer. Otherwise, they may hang on for your response for a week or month, building resentment. Whilst the contact form page is not the page that necessarily represents your branding, it certainly needs to function and is not a page to forget about once it has been created.
Remember, YENA Members get a free website ‘health check’ with Varn – Find out more here!
