Careful consideration should be given to the contents and design of your Contact Us page, as although hidden away in the back of the website this page is the vital link between the prospective customer and your business. As such clear, concise and complete information should be readily visible and accessible for visitors, whilst providing an opportunity for the company to connect with the reader and encourage that all important contact request.
Essential information such as company addresses should be included, along with relevant email addresses and telephone numbers. Details of Social Media Accounts should also be displayed, providing further insight into your business as well as another method of encouraging contact and customer interaction. Directions and maps to your office locations are always useful and again provide assistance to those enquiring. Details about the company such as the Registered Address, Company Registration Number and VAT Number should also be included, and this again adds to buyer confidence that they are dealing with a professional organisation.
Whilst there are countless ways in which your contact page can be designed, firstly it needs to feature your company branding, ensuring it is consistent with the rest of the website. A balance needs to be achieved between providing a useful tool for visitors and instilling confidence that an enquiry will be dealt with efficiently. This can be achieved through a short message at the start of the Contact Us page showing that you welcome the enquiry and that you are ready to offer assistance. Some organisations state a timeframe such as a response will be received within 24 hours, this may be appropriate to some and if so it is obviously critical that these commitments are fulfilled. Encouraging prospects to telephone gives them an immediate response during working hours and a chance for you to personally engage with the prospective customer.
To ensure that enquiries can be dealt with both effectively and efficiently it may be useful to include some basic questions about the nature of the enquiry. If you choose to include a form, these need to be simple, quick and easy to submit. It can be useful to encourage prospective clients to think about their requirements as they contact you, but avoid asking for too much information at this stage and it may deter some prospects if enquiry submission is a lengthy process.
As this is potentially the last page a prospective client with see include references to associations you are members of and partners and/or sites you are affiliated with, this again confirms to the prospective client they can have confidence in dealing with you, and provides a snapshot of what your organisation can bring to them.
