Web Designer Hints and Tips – Make it easy for people to contact you

Build trust – Make it easy for people to contact you

So many sites only post limited contact information – what does this imply to you – perhaps they do not want you to contact them? Why?

• They don’t want to actually converse with you?
• If you do have a query or issue can you get it resolved?
• Are they a genuine business?
• Do they care about customer service or do they just want your money?

There are a number of reasons to make it easy for people to contact you. Most obviously, they might actually want to contact you but more subtly – making it clear that they can telephone you, email you, write to you at a bricks and mortar address or perhaps fill out a simple form helps reassure them. This helps build the trust that they may need to take that next step. So

• Make key contact information prominent –  Display at least a telephone number and e-mail address on every page.
• Provide a full address – this will help reassure site visitors that they’re dealing with a credible company with a physical presence.
• Provide additional helpful information – if your phone is only going to be answered between 9.00-17.00 weekdays then say so, if you have various telephone numbers for different services, make this clear. If there is any information that callers will need to provide, such as an order tracking number, let them know in advance
  so they can have it at hand.
• If you provide contact forms – keep them simple and easy to fill in. Avoid asking for lots of obligatory personal contact information to reassure people that their personal data will be used to answer their query, not for marketing purposes.
• For emails and contact forms give an indication of how quickly you’ll be able to answer enquiries, so that people with urgent enquiries can choose to telephone you instead.