A Bug's Life!

Hello,

Today at work I’ve been prospecting for a (web|communication)-agency. I came across several ones and I had to contact them.

That’s a pretty obvious and straight-forward thing. Well, at least it should be, because most of the time when calling you have difficulties to get to speak to someone who can help you (certainly because they are at a meeting).

But my point today is about contact forms included on websites. I came across several, and although that may seem pretty good for you because you can ask for some informations and have them for sure and also have them in a formatted way.

But the real problem is that mails sent by this way are not stored in your customer’s mailbox, making it difficult for him to track the conversation and have a trace of the contact.

So, one may argue that contact forms are also pretty good because they are a straightforward way to contact you without opening a mail application (yes some people do not have things correctly configured for mailto: links). That’s true, but that should never be the only possibility, nor should it “hide” your mail address.

I suggest to give both options and to present them with an equivalent sizing (i.e. : they should occupy the same space). Also, if the user choose to use the form, add a checkbox so that you can send him a copy of the mail for its archive.

That may seem a bit stupid, but trust me, even if I had a spreadsheet to follow my contacts, I sometime forgot to update it (I had some other things in mind) and the pain that comes with that can be avoided quite easily. And never forget : if you help me with my work, you’re already half way to get selected! ;-)

Any thoughts?

See you later!