Nowadays businesses have an unprecedented number of ways that they can make themselves available to be contacted. As a result many often overlook one of the most basic options: A simple contact form published on their business website.
While it may seem like and ‘old fashioned’ option, the fact of the matter is that contact forms are just as relevant as ever. In fact, there are several reasons why ever business needs one:
- Allows visitors to get in touch directly from the website
With any other option, visitors would have to go through an additional step before they can get in touch – such as visiting a social media page, opening an email client, or dialing a phone number. That isn’t the case with contact forms that are available directly on the website itself.
Effectively this places one less hurdle in front of anyone interested in contacting the business, which is always a good thing. It will help ensure that you get more responses overall, and your visitors will undoubtedly appreciate the convenience of it.
- Provides an easy way to segment responses via their subject
Another clear reason to use contact forms is that the subject field can provide for an easy way to segment responses. Although it does add an extra field to your form that may not be there otherwise, in the long run it can make managing the responses significantly easier – especially when you’re dealing with a large volume.
That is especially useful for businesses, as it will allow them to sort responses that may fall under several different categories, ranging from enquiries about products or services, requests for support, specific questions, and so on. With a bit of scripting or integration with a CRM system it would be possible to automatically forward responses to relevant parties.
- Avoid (most) spam
Compared to most other options, it is possible to avoid most spam when using a contact form. The form itself can filter spam using CAPTCHA to test that real people are responding, and further filters or hidden questions can help track and eliminate any spam that does happen to get through.
Overall that should help eliminate almost all spam, with a few stray exceptions here and there. It is certainly far more effective than publishing an email address or even social media in some cases.
If you’re going to be creating a contact form for your business however it is important that you’re able to customize it, and make it as user-friendly and easy for users to fill out as possible. That customization may be tricky, but for example you could use AidaForm Online Form Builder and follow the steps at https://aidaform.com/forms/contact-form.html.
By this point you should be able to see why contact forms are still a very relevant, useful, and (to be frank) essential addition to business websites. If you haven’t already created one for your website it should be near the top of your priority list due to the important role it can play.
