Contact forms. Every company that has a website needs at least one. The purpose of the form isn’t as important as its existence. Whether it’s used for sales, customer service or technical support…having a way for clients to reach you through your website is an essential part of doing business on the web. Why, then, are they so often overlooked or forgotten? As a refresher, here are a few questions every company needs to ask when considering your online contact forms:
• What happens to the messages after they are submitted?
• Where do they go?
• How are they tracked?
• Who follows up on them?
Too often, the answers to these questions are: “I don’t know.” Here are 4 mistakes that we see people make with contact forms:
John@…
Don’t send contact email forms solely to a personal email account. What happens if:
• The person goes on vacation?
• The person quits or gets fired?
• The person is injured or dies?
While it may seem a little pessimistic, these things do happen. If or when they do, your contact form submissions will go unanswered. Instead, send emails to Sales@, Support@ or some other address that will not change, then assign a person to monitor those accounts.
Don’t use “challenge & response” email verification systems that block emails being sent to you.
At first these systems sound good because they block spam by replying to all incoming emails requesting the sender take some action in order to verify they are not a spammer. The problem is that your customer may be using the same software or some other anti-spam software that block your response. At the very least, you have aggravated a customer by delaying them. You have also given potential customers one more opportunity to walk away, denying you a sale.
Don’t set the FROM email address to the email address entered in the contact form.
While this was standard practice and is still very common today, it is actually a form of “spoofing” commonly used by spammers. As such, mail servers and anti-spam software have developed to block “spoofed” emails. In short, your anti-spam software or mail server may begin rejecting emails the next time it is updated. Instead, use noresponce@yourdomain.com as the return address when delivering the forms via email.
Don’t rely strictly on email delivery.
There are numerous contact form software options that will store the messages in a CRM (client relationship manager) AND notify the appropriate people in your organization. This allows managers and staff to see the status of all messages and relate them to specific clients and sales opportunities. Tell us if you would like to know more about these kinds of inbound marketing options.
A few more words to the wise regarding contact forms: Don’t ask for too much information and keep your forms simple. The more information you request, the less likely customers will be to fill them out.
Have any other questions about contact forms? Ask us in the comments or via our contact page.
