How should customers contact my business ?
Why are you writing about this, isn't it obvious ?
Perhaps, however this will vary from business to business and there are some real pitfalls. The main methods are of course; email, phone, in person, contact forms, text
In terms of in person contacts - you will decide your strategy for this yourself. In terms of the telephone - this will depend on your size and if there is anyone to answer it. We can help here as we have great expertise in setting up internet phone systems, VOIP, virtual numbers and re-directs.
To explain - this allows you to have one 0845 number that will go to your office phone, landline and mobile. Allowing you to be contacted even when away from the office.
We now come onto the area most relevant to our services - email and contact forms.
email - help me ! my customer love it but I am drowning ...
The truth is that business and customers view emails very differently. How many times has a customer said to you - " well Is ent you an email about it and was upset I didn't get a reply ?"
The problem is that once an email has been sent - a customer assumes they have done their bit. They perhaps have sent it to the wrong address, someone else or its arrive but not been seen.
SPAM is the villain of this peace - as soon as your business reaches any appreciable size you will be receiving a number of emails daily. We look after some 5 business email addresses and get 10,000 email daily. Of these 100 are "relevant" i.e. offers, updates, newsletters another 50 are from customers and 10 urgent.
How to pick these our from the 10,000 is tricky - SPAM filters can help a little but its an inexact way to communicate. We will setup email addresses for you of course and Spam filters and so forth - however we suggest you try and direct most enquires to a contact form.
contact forms -
Forms are used because email has become a "hit and miss" affair - with no guaranteed success rate. If a message come via a contact form, then its high priority, relevant and most importantly from a customer. That's the theory - however poorly implemented forms can actually have the opposite effect and make people want to NEVER CONTACT YOU !
does this sound like an experience that you have had before ?
you click on a contact page and they have a neat web form to put a message into - great you think. You then type it all up and retype your email twice (why) ! You get to the bottom and oh - horror, you see one of those boxes with distorted letters inside. You type them in as best you can - guessing what they are - click enter, its wrong. You try again, with blood pressure rising - wrong. Even worse they change every time to try and trick you ! Finally in disgust you decide anyone sadistic enough to use such a thing - just isn't worth talking to anyway !
The above describes an experience on a badly designed (and quite common) form - with what is know as a CAPTCHA. The idea is that it CAPTURES non human messages (known as BOTS) and separates them out or rejects them. However - in our experience it is also quite good at rejecting us too !
We therefore put a lot of work into contact forms - well implemented they are a good method, providing clear messages that can be routed directly to the relevant people. We include a copy of the message back to the customer - so they can see what they said.
This also helps avoid the annoyance of having to type in an email address twice. The reason for this is that the company obviously wants to make sure you have typed properly - by doing it twice they can be compared and make sure you type it correctly., However - this is also annoying to customers, so we find that sending a copy to them helps.
Why not try out a FREE Session with a designer and look at one of our forms ?
Because the choices you make for your website effect the whole of your business, you need to make sure you get it right. That's why we have a free, no-obligation session with a designer to get you started. They will go through a structured discussion so that by the end you will understand what you need. They will explore your ideas, inspirations and key business messages.
You can click the button to send us a message using our secure messaging system, or call us on 0792 0056 333 to book
