Contact page: Exploring the best contact methods

A contact page is a crucial element of a website that allows visitors to get in touch with you. It is an essential feature of any website, regardless of its purpose. A contact page provides a simple and efficient way for visitors to communicate with you, ask questions, provide feedback, and more. In this article, we will discuss the use cases for a contact page on a website.

Providing all accessibility formats

Providing information to all your potential customers requires using many formats. Including the web, phone, sign, email etc. Other decisions also play a role, are you happy to leave an email or phone number available to the public? Are there multiple contact points used by different people? Contact applications also work with other aspects of the web, to learn more about pass your details to search engines, you can view a guide on structured data.

To add a form to give users the ability to contact you instantly.

One of the main use cases for a contact page is to provide a form or method that visitors can fill out to contact you instantly. This form typically includes fields for name, email, subject, and message. The form can also include other fields depending on the purpose of your website. For instance, if you are running an e-commerce website, you can add a field for order number.

When adding functionality it is important to consider if what you are adding is imposing any conditions upon potential consumers. Having a form instead of an email may impose a restriction on senders to use other means to store a duplicate message or an indicator of the message. Taking into account that existing functionality already has better accessibility than your Implementation.

For some communication, like having a form which upon receiving a message, sends a receipt to an email including the contents, is not perfect accessibility to someone without an email or a postage stamp. Since the receipt was not generated from their side of the communication.

QR Codes and vCards

Another common format that users expect are vCards; vCards are the best digital business card format when transferring data from one medium to a user’s Contact application. Build a vCard here. QR codes can also be used with vCards for seamless sharing.

What should be on a contact page?

In a perfect world, making every method available would be preferred.Allowing users to quickly choose their preferred method. The contact page should be the definitive place users can refer to for any up-to-date details. Be sure to include links to all the methods you support. Humans aren’t the only thing that can use your contact page to receive information, search engines and other applications (see structured data) can access your information here.

Should social media links be included?

Another use case for a contact page is to provide a wide variety of details such as the phone number, physical address, and social media profiles. This information is essential for visitors who prefer to contact you using these methods. Providing multiple ways to contact you increases the chances of visitors getting in touch with you.

As more is better, consider methods to combine multiple profiles into one manageable one. However, it is advisable to be selective in your adoption of any platform.

Adding opening hours?

Your website should be the authoritative source of information on your business. Offering more info than other applications do and any further details. Other applications now offer information on your business but it’s effective for your website to be the source of any info. The aim of a good website is to create a rich authoritative document that utilizes exciting web features to provide functionality to customers. Providing enough utility to enable users to leverage value from web features is now more Important than ever.

Applications are getting smarter and more integrated every day. Still, no matter how smart AI applications and user feedback improvement become at determining and displaying information on your behalf, a source of truth must be called to provide the most up-to-date info. On the other hand, allowing customers to optimise functionality is imperative for competitiveness. Even those third party applications can’t work for the use cases where for example there’s been an unexpected closure. That is without making a call to a source of truth. Read more on structure.

The cost to make a network call is minuscule to the petrol cost of a wasted trip to the shopping mall.

A customer bookmarks your contact page, opening it to check if a shop is open just before having to enter the mall to get a coffee. If it’s closed, 5 mins could have been saved.

Take a customer traveling to a fast food restaurant, before engaging with any order there first needs to be a check on if its open. Else you risk frustrating a customer by wasting effort in creating a particular basket only to then force them to abandon it.

Or, to display a notice to potential visitors to redirect to an overflow car park.

Should A map be included on a website contact page?

If your business has a physical location, you can use your contact page to provide a map or directions to your location. This is particularly helpful for visitors who are not familiar with your area and need help finding your business.

To receive feedback from visitors.

Your contact page can also be used to receive feedback from visitors. This feedback can be about your products, services, website, or anything else related to your business. Feedback can be valuable in helping you improve your business and website.

To provide customer support.

If you offer customer support, your contact page can be used to provide this service. You can provide a phone number, email address, or live chat option for visitors to get in touch with your support team. This is particularly important for e-commerce websites, where visitors may have questions or issues with their orders.

In conclusion, a contact page is an essential component of any website. It provides a simple and efficient way for visitors to communicate with you, ask questions, provide feedback, and more. By including a contact page on your website, you can improve the user experience and increase the chances of visitors getting in touch with you.