Building Contact Us Pages to Help Sell
The seemingly simple Contact Us page is a vital part of your web site that is often overlooked and undercooked. People will look at your contact page to learn far more than your phone number. If they don’t find what they expect you may lose them before you get to the product stage.
The general logical progress that people should use to move through your site is overview (home), specific solutions (products), proof (portfolio/articles), the people (about) and finally to taking the next step (contact). However, in reality people will often move in a different order based on their needs and values. People don’t even necessarily start on your home page. You may well have landed on this article following a link from another site bypassing my home page. You may read some, or all, of this article and then want to know where the author is. “Contact” is a good place to start looking so off you go.
If I am seeking a local solution then I will often look at the Contact page to see if the provider meets the locality criteria, once the Home page has given me the impression that they could be a contender. Only then will I start to look deeper.
It is vital to have the Contact page as the last menu item, because that is where people expect it to be and can find it easily. Putting Contact anywhere else is asking for trouble.
 A simple & lean Contact page |
Let’s look at what we need on a good contact page and why:
1. Business Name – sure this should be on your site header but write it in the address block too as it helps to let users know who they are dealing with. Your user may be hoping to copy and paste so make sure it is all there in nice text (images can’t be copied and pasted).
2. Street Address – if you have anything approaching an office then be sure to put your address. Showing an address helps you to seem more ‘real’. Not showing real world addresses makes you seem shifty. This is a dilemma ‘new style’ web-based businesses have to overcome but surely you keep your chair somewhere in this wired universe.
3. Postal Address – if you have a PO Box then pop this up there too, even though snail mail is a bit dull. Maybe someone will send you something shiny.
4. Phone Number – you have to have one of these if you intend to talk to people. If you don’t want people to talk to you, if you think talking to people is a waste of your time, close your business now. A 1800 number makes you look big. A land line makes you look approachable. A mobile makes you findable 24/7
5. Fax Number – way old school but businesses seem to like ‘em so slip it on in if you have one of these tech dinosaurs.
6. Email Address/s – either one general address or one for each of the people users may want to deal with (including Marjorie in Accounts). Make sure email addresses link right off your site so users can click them. Hiding email addresses is serving your needs over those of your customers which of course is not serving your needs at all when customers can’t reach out to you. We all get spam. Tossing out the baby with the bath water can’t be wise (unless you hate babies).
7. Skype and other Messenger Addresses – these are a super smart way to talk as they are free and having a headset makes you really focused (not to mention look cool and modern). Some internet chat systems let you have group meetings, seminars and even see and play with each other’s computers. Use these to save a fortune on travel and wasted time.
8. Maps – Google (and others) do these wonderful maps that are free and come ready to be pasted into your site with the ability to give people directions to you. Use maps and don’t hesitate to give people directions if you are remotely difficult to find.
9. Product Image – not everyone will be able to do this but if you have a way to remind people how being in contact with you will make their lives better then show a product image to keep ‘em keen. For a service business a tasteful image of yourself can help. Please note the word tasteful. Don’t let images of you look sexy or too posed unless you happen to be a model or actor. You can also use an image of your building looking smart for instant recognition as the person drives up your street. Whatever you use, be sure not to overload this page.
10. Form – now you will see that I have left forms to last. This is deliberate because all too often forms are used in place of the more real and personal ways of letting people be in contact with you. Mostly I believe this is a form of laziness, snobbery or arrogant control that is damaging to your customers. Remember that people love building forms, but people hate filling in forms. Keep forms as simple as possible. Note how the example form above keeps fields and required data to an absolute minimum. You could use your contact forms to gather other data but I question whether this is really a good idea as you are asking customers to help you before you have helped them. Get your receptionist and or sales staff to ask the data mining questions.
If you feel tempted to avoid any of these basics then please think carefully. And by that I mean very carefully. Web sites are only a pixel deep, they can’t be held in the hands like a brochure, which is an impediment to confidence. Lacking details on your site erodes user confidence further.
Simply put, different people have different ways of wanting to to contact you. If you remove any option for contact, you may be alienating a whole group of people. Let’s look at the types of people who will want to contact you in specific ways:
The Charger – will charge into your showroom to put thumb prints on your merchandise. They don’t want to muck about with less than up-front and in-person. If they can’t go toe-to-toe with you then they will go somewhere else.
The Enquirer – will get on the phone with a few select questions to short list the places to visit. You need to have a good phone sales team to do everything right here.
The Fact Collector – will email you with an enquiry and want to know specific facts like price. Answer fast and fully. Like The Hider (below) this person can tend to be a bit hands off. They will hide behind ‘not having time’ as an excuse but the reality is these people are not really ready to do business openly.
The Hider – is about the only person who really likes filling in forms. This is because this person is afraid of getting in too deep too soon. Hiders will often fill in forms with several businesses at once, either because they are not ready to commit or they are afraid of confrontation. Answer fast but don’t push these people as you can frighten them off. Let them choose to give you a real phone number instead of forcing them to give you a false one.
Of course these types are pretty broad and not exclusive but nonetheless why would you choose not to want to hear from any of these types of customers?
If you want me to work with your business then please visit BRM Web Consulting
