The next important page we’ll deal with in our Top 10 Ways to Ruin Your Website series is the Contact page. Most websites have one. Usually a Contact page consists of some kind of form and also a list of other ways to connect with your business. So how does one screw up something so simple? Easy. Let’s discuss the top reasons how.

1. Wrong Information:

Have you ever had this happen? You go to a Contact page, dial the listed number and get that lovely lady’s voice on the other end: I’m sorry, the number you are trying to reach is no longer in service. (She sounds so pleased with herself, doesn’t she?) If you change your number, update your site. There’s no easier way to lose a client.

2. No Information:

Better even than wrong information, is none at all. You’re excited about the company, you’re ready to talk to them but… no contact information. This is particularly annoying when there is a contact form but no one answers your requests.

3. Contact form error:

Check your site. Make sure it works. Click through everything. If your contact form displays an error when they message you (even if the message actually gets through) a possible client can get very frustrated, even if the problem out of your control.

4. Never hooking up your email to your form:

A contact form must be connected to an email address. However, you can set-up a form without linking it to an email. In fact, funny story, we set one up for a client once and he gave us the email he wanted the message forwarded to. The problem was, he didn’t actually have that email set up with his host. Lesson here: you do not magically have an email called info@company.com you can send things to. You set that up or pay a web company to do it for you.

5. Never checking the email connected to your contact form:

This isn’t really a problem with the Contact page its self, but its worth mentioning. Actually I wrote a post just on contact forms a few months ago that talks more about this. If you have a contact form, check the email it goes to. Or connect it to your outlook, or forward it to an email you actually check, but make sure you get those messages! I know people who missed opportunities because they didn’t stay on top of their contact form.

6. Requiring someone’s birth certificate before they can use your form:

Okay, so I’m exaggerating a little. But you’ve seen what I mean. The contact form requires certain information (usually denoted with a “*”) before you can hit send. Now, I agree, its a good idea to require some information, like an email or phone number so you can get back in touch with people, but don’t expect people to give you their life story and social security number just to ask one question.

7. Making the form look too long:

This kinda pairs up with #6. You don’t want to scare people away by requiring too much from them. If the form scrolls down two pages I’m probably going to skip it and look for another way to get in touch with you. Most people contact companies through websites to either immediately fill a need or ask basic questions. There should be as few roadblocks as possible to get in touch with you.

8. Hiding your phone number:

Apart from wrong information and no information there is much more sinister: purposefully hidden information. For some reason, certain companies only want feedback through one channel. So they put a phone number up but they hide it at the bottom or it takes two clicks to get to. Or they hide their email, or they hide everything but the sacred contact form. My thoughts are, give people as many ways to contact you as possible, but if you have a preferred method, list it. Or let them know that your response will be via your preferred contact method. AKA, please include you phone number in your email so we can call you back.

9. Excessive Text:

I’m not sure why people feel the need to write an introduction paragraph to their Contact page. But then again, I’m a fan of simplicity. It says (or should say) Contact at the very top of the page, isn’t that enough ? But if you feel you must preface your information, than do so minimally. Get to the point as quickly as possible. Make sure your information or form still shows up on the screen without having to scroll down.

10. TMI (Too Much Information):

I mentioned earlier, you give people as many avenues to contact you as possible. But I want to add a disclaimer. Don’t overwhelm people. Don’t list 7 different phone number with no explanation. Don’t list a bunch of names and then their emails addresses with their department. Make sure not to  overload people, sometimes they just want to send one generic email and be done with it. Give your customers that option.

Note: If you do any trouble-shooting or have a customer service department you Contact page is SO MUCH MORE IMPORTANT! Everything I say here should be in bold for you.

Do you get contacted through your website? If so, which method do people use most often?

Image by AussieGal

Today I want to hurt the feelings of a tiny tool that every salesman I’ve met keeps on his desk; the rolodex. I hate the rolodex. I hate its infernal little tabs and its mindless organizing system and today I’m going spend an entire post tell you why it sucks. But not to worry, your contacts deserve better and I have a solution.

Your Rolodex and Its Many Short-Comings

• Organization: So a rolodex may look more organized that my original method for keeping business cards (a shoe box) but instead of empowering you, it restricts you. You can only search one way: alphabetically. And you can only alphabetize by one method (first name, last name, company name – pick one). You can’t search through it by category or need.
• Infuriation: Not everyone’s cards fit in the box. Some people like to be special (ever seen those cards that try to be cute and are shaped like a square? They just want to mess up your system!). Or better yet you have to write the information onto a card, wasting your precious time.
• Transportation: Its not exactly portable either, is it? You can’t go to a lunch with it in your pocket.
• Inspiration: So what happens if you want to give some a referral on the spot? You can’t unless you happen to have them in your cell phone! You have to make a note and hope you remember. The moment of opportunity is gone.

So what can you do?

Get Rid of the Rolodex. Forget all that paper work. Call it going “Green“! (Or whatever helps you sleep at night.)

Now, let me tell you what I do.

1. I go to a meeting and come home with a handful of cards.
2. I log on to Linked-In during the next week and type in their name.
3. If they’re on, I connect with them, adding a note about where we met. If not, I send an invite.
4. Then I upload the contacts to my outlook through the Linked-In Toolbar.
5. (Extra step for my Blackberry/smart phone users: I synchronize my Outlook with my phone.)
6. Then I THROW THE CARDS AWAY. That’s right, I toss them.

I know what you’re thinking: What if they don’t connect with you and you could have used their service? Too bad. I figure I would have stuck them in my rolodex and forgotten about them anyhow. But now since they are in my phone and their information is updated through, I can connect them to other people or get in touch with them any time. It may sound crazy but it works. I stay better connected, I don’t have as much paperwork all over my desk and I have their information with me all the time.

So I suggest getting all your cards together this 4th of July weekend and roasting some marshmallows on them.

What do you do to simplify your business with technology? Are you really using Linked-In to its great potential or are you just there?

Last week I had the opportunity to speak on a panel for Microsoft BizSpark’s first event: SparkStart. I sat on the Marketing Panel with two fantastic names you may know: Giovanni and Sean Jackson. I had a great time and every person I talked to said that they got even more out of the day than they expected.

However, though social media was spotlighted by the marketing panel we did discuss other ways to market. I want to share some quick thoughts that I thought should be repeated:

• Consider your sales funnel: There is a gap between the intent to purchase and actual purchase, do everything you can to help people get through it.
• Don’t scatter shot: Focus your social media efforts, but make sure you grab your real estate with something like NameCheck
• Social Media Tip: Have the heart of a servant
• Twitter: To quote Giovanni “its the shiniest thing out there right now” but know your target market, they might not use Twitter; go where your clients are.
• Branding, branding, branding: Do this FIRST! Don’t get on Facebook til your brand is completely ironed out.
• Email: has not gone out of style and is still a cornerstone of any online campaign.

If you missed SparkStart, I heard that due to the overwhelming positive feedback, there will be more of them! Feel free to contact them at their website or their twitter profile: @Sparkstart

Did you attend? What did you take away with you?

“There’s no excuse for no contact form” said Elizabeth Able (ablereach) on my Top 100 Internet Blunders Committed by Businesses post. And Chris Lucas from iMedia recently wrote a great article about making your contact form work harder for you. He covers some basics like not to make your form intimidating and make sure you are doing something with the information details people give you.

But how does your contact form work for you—or does it even work at all? Of course, it important to provide a way for possible clients contact you, but why should they? A lot of businesses only have their contact form filled out by marketing people (aka glorified spam), if they ever get used at all. So how do you get people to actually use your contact form for the purpose you want them to?

1. Decide what you want your contact form to do for you. It surprises me how many people don’t actually have a well-thought out reason. Why do you want people to contact you? Have a clear, defined purpose. If possible, write it down.
2. Have a compelling reason for people to contact you. Now that you’ve figured out why people should contact you, make sure your site backs it up. If you want people to contact you about a quote or to set an appointment, clarify that at other points on your website. Make everything lead up to the ultimate thing you want your website to do: provide revenue.
3. Make your contact form the simple next step. We live in a generation of ADD people (diagnosed and those of us who just neurotically multitask), so when some reads great content on your site and decides to contact you, make it easy. You want to be right there when someone has the impulse to talk to you. (So make sure you read Chris’s article, he mentions mechanics… the worst thing is to have a useless contact form and miss the window.) On certain pages where contacting you is the obvious next step, hyperlink to your form.
4. Respond to your contact form in 24 hours or less. It sounds simple, but some people just put off responding or checking their contact email. If your contact form goes to a secondary email address (like mine goes to contact@veribatim.com) make sure someone is regularly checking it. Set it up to go to your outlook or other mail service. If you check your email at least once a day, you should be able to respond and make your customer feel loved.This can also help you land those time-sensitive opportunities.
5. Reward people who use your contact form. After you’ve promptly responded, give your client something extra. It doesn’t have to be a free gift or a discount (but those are good ideas), it can be more creative, like offering a link exchange. But go the extra mile and watch more people contact you!
6. Follow-up & Survey. Often the follow-up can be more important than the initial contact (ask your local sales guy where they get the most referrals). Its true, even online. Follow-up with people who’ve contacted you through your site. Even if its just to survey them. Ask them how they found your site, why they used the contact form instead of calling and if they were satisfied with your turn-around time.

Have you thought about the purpose of your contact form? I challenge you to write out a sentence about why you have one and what you want people to use it for. (Feel free to share!)

The Plot: I had my car worked on this past month. Took it to Midas for a tune-up and they did a wonderful job, I was impressed (no small matter!). I even registered for my appointment online which earned them extra points. I left pleased with my experience and ready to recommend them. But then…. it happened! (dun, dun, duuuuun)

The Villian: A week later I’m sitting in the middle of dinner,  6:30pm on a Thursday night and my cell phone rings. I’m expecting a call from a client so I excuse myself and answer. The man on the other line works for Midas and wants to know if I will take a survey.

The Dilemma: I wanted to give Midas a nice review but my family was waiting for me and this didn’t seem like a good enough reason to be rude. So I politely asked, “Is there some way you can email me a survey? I’d love to give you feedback but I’m in the middle of dinner.”

“It will only take 5 minutes!” he promises.

Grudgingly I agree and spend ten minutes on the phone.

The Conclusion: My immediate reaction was one of resentment. How dare they call my personal number in the middle of the evening! And why bother me on the phone when they have a perfectly good email address which I’m more likely to respond to? I made my appointment online so obviously I’m open to interacting with them that way. It seemed like case in point to me.

The Other Side of the Coin: After stewing on this for about a week I decided I could see their point of view. Its easy to ignore an email. Its much harder to ignore someone on the phone. And it has a “personal” (if you can call it that) touch.

The Other, Other Side of the Coin: However, more and more people don’t answer numbers they don’t recognize. Quite a bit of resentment still exists towards telemarketers, and even friendly phone calls can get lumped into that category. So maybe they need to offer an incentive so people will take the survey online… it still probably costs less than having someone call and then correlate the data. You only have to write one email and direct everyone to the same survey.

The Conclusion: Over all, I still think email would have been the best way to contact me. And Midas lost an awesome review because it. I can see their side, but I think more people lean towards email nowadays or even text messages!

The Question: What do you think? If your business uses surveys how do you distribute them?

Had an experience this past week which made me reconsider how important a single email can be.

I belong to a wine club, you know, the kind that ship you a different wine each month? Its a lot of fun to have it show up on your doorstep. I love opening the box and then trying something new! However, this month my shipment didn’t show up. They usually appear towards the beginning of the month and I hadn’t gotten anything by the 20th. I finally decided to call and see if there was a problem. The customer service politely explained there had been a delay in shipping my product. They did not explain what caused this delay but added I would receive my shipment on the 26th. (I’d also like to add they did not apologize for the delay, they just told me the arrival date.) After hanging up, I wondered if I would receive an automated email of some kind, alerting me that my New Years Champagne (yup, that’s what they called it) would not arrive ’til almost February. But nothing showed up in my inbox.

It really bothered me that this company didn’t bother sending even a one line email. They just let it go. I guess they assumed their customers wouldn’t notice the two week gap. Its not like they didn’t have my information, either. I get an email each month telling me I’ve been billed. More than a week seems like a pretty long time when you are expecting a shipment… especially one that’s time-sensitive. Not that I won’t find another occasion to drink champagne, but it was the principle of the thing.

I wonder how many customers called in, possibly angry, about the delay of their wine. It seems to me that an email (which costs nothing to send) might have saved them a lot of headache and kept a number of clients, like me, perfectly content. I wonder if they even considered sending an email, or am I just so tethered to the internet that my concept of common sense didn’t occur to them?

Either way, this incident impressed upon me the power of a single email, or lack thereof. In fact, this situation has actually made me consider going with a different wine club when my account ends. So those of you who deal in e-commerce, remember that a simple note, sent at no cost, to a dozen or more clients can make a big difference. And personally, as a business owner, if that email kept back even one angry phone call, I think its worth it.

Do you have a story like this? Do you think my evaluation of the situation is too harsh? Have you ever had a make-or-break moment in regards to a single email? Share it with me! I’d also like to point out that this was the inspiration for #72 Wait a Minute Mr. Postman in my 100 Top Internet Blunders made by Businesses that I posted last week.