We all have contact us forms and maybe an eMail address on our site. That is good. How many of you have used a contact form and never, never gotten a response from the web site organization. Simply amazing to me. Oh by the way... I never use that organization, a lost opportunity for them. What is not so good is that many, many of these forms do not work. There are lots of reasons, but mostly one can blame site quality and lack of controls in the organization whose site it is. Let me explain.
Website design Essex
Technical Quality
Making and executing a contact us form should not be so difficult. Yet it continues not to work for a high number of sites. Let's list some of the reasons:
Your site developer did not construct it correctly. Remember this relies on a few technical underpinning to work. Did they program it right? Did they test it?
The site changes and everyone forgets to change the contact us so it continue to work
Is the mail server the same? Did you change hosting companies and forgot to change the SMTP configuration?
Did the eMail account change? Different Password maybe?
Business Process Quality
I'm always amazed that so many of the business processes just don't work. Mostly due to no one writing process procedures down or no one reading them if they exist. Did the new web site person even know about the contact form. In the long years of consulting to businesses I find that simple things and ordinary processes are never written or institutionalized. Much of the failures in the kind of issues we see with the failure of a contact form is that for the most part businesses use a "tribal" method of communication. You know... Sally has run the web site for years and now is training the new person by telling her stories and other non-written instructions. Much like tribal elders of yore did to preserve the their history. However they much have been better than modern business people in getting their information over to the next generation. Here are a few items that cause the contact form to fail from a business viewpoint.
The contact email used is not monitored. Did you remember to read the "info@yourcompany.com" email?
The person assigned to read those contact eMails leaves the company. Does the next person know enough to read those eMails?
Do you have a process to forward the contact us eMails to the correct person in the company? e.g. sales lead to the sales department.
Does anyone ever test the forms and email to see if it works?
Lost Contact Us Remedies
So what are the best ways to prevent lost contact us activity? I think it is putting a testing plan together that forces someone to test the forms or eMails on a regular basis. That along is the only way to prove with a doubt that everything is working as it should. Below are the steps I would recommend to all organization that have a contact us form and eMail on their web site.
Test regularly, like each month. Set an alarm up in your calendar to alert you each month to test all the various contact us forms and eMails.
Have someone other than the person in charge test the system. Rotate that chore or do it by department. If you expect the sales department to read the sales@ message then have the sales team be responsible each month.
Write the notes that will remind you of changes that are import to this process.
Change of hosting
Change in web site technology
Change in web site design / programming of the contact us page.
Changes in staff of the receiving person
Once these remedies are accomplished you will never lose a prospect or a message again from the Contact Us form.
Website design Essex
Website design Essex
Technical Quality
Making and executing a contact us form should not be so difficult. Yet it continues not to work for a high number of sites. Let's list some of the reasons:
Your site developer did not construct it correctly. Remember this relies on a few technical underpinning to work. Did they program it right? Did they test it?
The site changes and everyone forgets to change the contact us so it continue to work
Is the mail server the same? Did you change hosting companies and forgot to change the SMTP configuration?
Did the eMail account change? Different Password maybe?
Business Process Quality
I'm always amazed that so many of the business processes just don't work. Mostly due to no one writing process procedures down or no one reading them if they exist. Did the new web site person even know about the contact form. In the long years of consulting to businesses I find that simple things and ordinary processes are never written or institutionalized. Much of the failures in the kind of issues we see with the failure of a contact form is that for the most part businesses use a "tribal" method of communication. You know... Sally has run the web site for years and now is training the new person by telling her stories and other non-written instructions. Much like tribal elders of yore did to preserve the their history. However they much have been better than modern business people in getting their information over to the next generation. Here are a few items that cause the contact form to fail from a business viewpoint.
The contact email used is not monitored. Did you remember to read the "info@yourcompany.com" email?
The person assigned to read those contact eMails leaves the company. Does the next person know enough to read those eMails?
Do you have a process to forward the contact us eMails to the correct person in the company? e.g. sales lead to the sales department.
Does anyone ever test the forms and email to see if it works?
Lost Contact Us Remedies
So what are the best ways to prevent lost contact us activity? I think it is putting a testing plan together that forces someone to test the forms or eMails on a regular basis. That along is the only way to prove with a doubt that everything is working as it should. Below are the steps I would recommend to all organization that have a contact us form and eMail on their web site.
Test regularly, like each month. Set an alarm up in your calendar to alert you each month to test all the various contact us forms and eMails.
Have someone other than the person in charge test the system. Rotate that chore or do it by department. If you expect the sales department to read the sales@ message then have the sales team be responsible each month.
Write the notes that will remind you of changes that are import to this process.
Change of hosting
Change in web site technology
Change in web site design / programming of the contact us page.
Changes in staff of the receiving person
Once these remedies are accomplished you will never lose a prospect or a message again from the Contact Us form.
Website design Essex
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