Contact form
The fields that send you a request. Worthless if the message lands where you never look.
What does Contact form mean?
A set of fields on a page that emails you, or another tool you chose, when a visitor asks for something. It is only useful if you see the messages and reply.
Also called: request form, inquiry form
Ask for less, not more
Name, a way to reply, and what they need is enough for most trades. Every extra required field is a reason to quit. A remodeler may need the town and the type of room. A restaurant taking party inquiries may need a date and a headcount. Add a field only if you would ask it on the phone anyway.
Do not ask for a street address on the first touch if you only need to know whether they are in your service area. You can ask the town. Collecting a home address before you have agreed to the job makes careful people leave.
Delivery is the whole feature
Decide the mailbox that should receive submissions, and test it from a phone that is not logged into your own admin. Check spam once on purpose. A form that shows a thank-you and sends nothing is a quiet failure you will blame on a slow season.
HTTPS, from the SSL certificate, is what keeps those fields from traveling in the clear. The form should post to your own site, not to a strange third domain you do not recognize. If you connect a scheduler you already pay for, the button can go there instead of pretending our form is the booking system.
Privacy and expectations
Say what you will do with the message. A sentence next to the button is better than a novel. The privacy policy can hold the longer version. Do not imply a medical or legal intake is confidential advice. It is a request to be contacted.
We test forms before launch as part of the launch checklist. Afterward, if you change the mailbox, tell us. Updating the destination is a small change. Building a client portal is not part of $0 down.
An example
A spa's form required a login to the builder before the owner could read it, and the notification email had been the web designer's. Messages piled up unseen. The rebuild sent each request to the front-desk mailbox and showed a plain thank-you. The desk started answering the same day.
Questions we get asked
Should the form replace the phone?
Only if that is how you want to work. Many businesses show both. The form catches people who will not call. The phone catches people in a hurry. Staff the one you display.
Can I get the leads in a spreadsheet?
Email is the default we trust because you already check it. A spreadsheet or a CRM can be a later step if you already use one. We will not stand up a new sales platform inside the brochure site.
