Contact Form Best Practices
Contact forms can be quirky, but when done correctly you make it VERY easy for new customers to reach out and get in touch. If you have just an email & phone number on your webpage, you are expecting the potential customer to draft an email and put content inside that is relevant for you to start a conversation.
More and more, we need to lead from a place of human connection and authenticity. Providing a process that feels less like contacting a robot, and more like contacting a real passionate human (you!) is incredibly helpful.
I will mention, many of my clients and friends use CRM software as well to import client info. I ask you to proceed with caution. If the form is making some of the mistakes you see below, you may want to consider a shorter contact form to get them in your sales funnel, then follow up with a longer form for them after they have committed more.
Let’s start with some mistakes I commonly see:
#1: Form is overwhelmingly long
Hubspot did a study of 40,000 contact forms and they found reducing the number of form fields from 4 to 3 actually improved the conversion rate by nearly 50 percent. What is the bare minimum you need? You can alway have an onboarding form after you have them in your system. My initial recommendations are: First & Last Name/ Email/ Phone/ What they are reaching out for/ Date Request if applicable.
#2: It might actually be broken
Regularly testing your contact form is so important before you see your conversions suddenly stop for no reason. Also pro tip, offer other ways to contact you like phone number, social links and email right on your contact page.
#3: Mobile view isn’t easy to view
Over 46% of our customers use mobile to view and interact with our websites. If your form doesn’t display or act correctly on mobile you will likely miss the opportunity to work together.
#4: Your confirmation form is robotic and empty
You’ve got them on the line. They are excited and just sent you their information. Be sure to have an engaging submit message. Tell them what they can expect next, let them know when they can expect to hear back from you. Even consider sending them to your Instagram, YouTube or Facebook while they are engaged with your brand. If you have a FAQ page, relink it here too!
#5: Hidden Contact Form
Webpage viewers expect to see a contact button in the top right corner on every page of a website and on the footer. Make it easy for them to find the form when they are ready to connect with you!
#6: Reply time matters
Surveys from both Microsoft and Klause found that 50% of email senders expect a reply within 24 hours. However, Hubspot shows that 90% of customers expect an immediate response under 10 minutes. Let’s be honest, it’s not smart for our personal lives to have our cell phones and laptops attached to us at the hip - but do consider how fast you would want a response if you were in their shoes. I also will mention, early birds do sometimes get the worm in these cases when they start a dialog with another service provider before you.
By putting a few minutes into perfecting the contact form experience, you are likely to see more engaged inquiries who are following through from a website visit to contact. Now you need to figure out how to handle all your new inquiries. :)
If you are in need of someone to help put eyes on your website and ensure it is properly reflecting who you are and following best website practices, email me and ask about my brand audits: hello@kaleighwiese.com