Redesigning Your Contact Forms
This post was made Jan 08, 2009 by Carlos del Rio
One of the most common elements of a website is a form of some type:
- Contact Forms
- Checkout Forms
- Quote Forms
A good deal of business revolves around the streamlining and improvement of a forms ability to accomplish its task. Every form is only as valuable as its ability to take a user all the way to completion. When optimizing your forms and landing pages you should be look to what your forms are trying to accomplish when you choose how to present your form.
Seattle graphic design firm, Eben Design, actually employs two different contact forms to fulfill the needs of two different types of visitors: Spontaneous and Methodical visitors.
For the the Spontaneous users Eben Design uses the following contact form at the bottom of every page:
This form offers very little to think about and requires minimal commitment to the process. It entices people at the beginning of their buying decision, or with a time constraint, and often yield the best total click through rate. Notice that the button uses a verb, connect, this word echoes the content of of the on page copy. Contact from this type of form requires that most of your required information be collected after initial contact from the visitor.
On the other end of the spectrum is a contact form like this next one:
This longer form offers a greater commitment to the process of contact, but also means that the user is further into decision process. Most likely the person filling out this form already knows what they want. They are a warmer lead that has already made a commitment to the brand. While this form will be completed less often the leads provided are more likely to result in a value for you.
What You Need to Consider
The first form has a clear value proposition, NOW, that helps drive its use. There are many cases that you will want the increased information that is provided by a longer form, but you want to remind the user why they are using the long form. Reiterate the incentives that you are offering for the investment your visitor is making. Does the longer form result in priority response? A free consultation? In designing your contact methods make sure that you are getting what you need by displaying a clear value to your users for using the version that you prefer. Your contact rates may be improved by something as simple as changing your focus: Contact Us vs. Hear From Us vs. Get an Answer Now.
The people who are contacting you have a need. You will get your best results by addressing there needs; putting this out front will result in the least resistance to giving you the information you need to do business with them right away.
[...] Redesigning your contact forms – Man, I’ve redesigned my contact form more times than I can recall. Contact forms are where we’re allowed to be control freaks. We can guide people gently or firmly through the processes they need to reach us. You can use contact forms to filter out a lot of the nonsense messages people want to send you (although some will still get through). [...]
[...] can read more about form design for lead volume vs lead qualification or checkout [...]