When I say website design, you probably think about a website’s homepage, product pages, or blog. Website designers often neglect the power of a contact page and that is a huge mistake.
A contact page builds trust with your prospective buyers. It gives your business credibility and turns visitors into leads.
The 2015 B2B Web Usability Report says that 51% of online users believe that detailed contact information is the critical element missing from many company websites. Moreover, 44% of website visitors would ditch your website if there is no contact information.
Here are six tips on designing a killer contact page.
1) Make it Easy for Customers to Find your Contact Page
Companies that do not provide an easy-to-find contact page are often perceived as unreliable. Precisely because of that, you should not make your website visitors hunt for your contact information. Place the links to your contact page where visitors expect to find them.
Users often search for contact information in the top right corner of the website or down in its footer. That is simply a web design norm.
Next, choose a clear and easily recognisable name for your contact page. Your goal is to help users easily locate the link to your contact page. The most common name variations are:
• “Support”: Zappier, Basecamp, HubSpot
• “Help”: Squarespace, Help Scout, WordPress.com
• “Contact Us”: Zendesk, Slack, Campaign Monitor
2) Humanise your Customer Support Team
The rise of instant messaging apps and AI-driven chatbots have made communication between brands and customers faster. However, many customers still prefer to talk to “real people” and not robots. Statistics say that 59% of customers believe that customer service has lost the human touch.
Your contact page should build trust with users by helping them get to know the members of your customer support team. Knowing the names and faces of the people behind your email, call center, and live chat support, customers will trust your customer support team more. Above all, since they know who they are talking to, they will be more polite in their interactions with your team.
Let’s take Nextiva as an example. Apart from affordable telephony services, what makes Nextiva good is its impeccable customer support. Their contact page emphasises that their customer support team is composed of “real humans” working from their office. It features the photos and names of their customer support team, along with the large “We’ve got your back” slogan.
3) Centralise your Contact Channels
Your contact page should centralise all contact and customer support options in a single location. Freshbooks is a perfect example of how this is done.
No matter if a website visitor wants to use live chat, call their support or sales team, or use their knowledge base, they can easily find the links to their desired pages on Freshbooks’ contact page. At the bottom of the page, there is also a brief contact form for users that want to send immediate feedback or seek help.
4) Design a User-Oriented Contact Page
When visiting your contact page, each customer has different needs, problems, questions, and expectations. That is why providing one-size-fits-all contact options does not cut it anymore.
For example, if a customer has forgotten their password and wants to reset it, they will expect you to provide a quick answer to their question. Your contact page should point them to your knowledge base where they can find a step-by-step help document on resetting passwords. Instead of filling out a contact form and waiting hours or days for your email response, the customer will solve the problem on their own. Statistics say that 40% of customers prefer self-service over human interactions.
The Squarespace contact page is synonymous with simplicity. For starters, a user needs to choose the topic and questions from a dropdown menu. Based on their choice, the form will show the “We think this will help” section, with the links to their knowledge base or FAQ page. If a user still needs help, they can reach out to their customer support via email or live chat.
5) Inform Customers about your Response Times
When a customer reaches out to your support team, they expect it to provide immediate feedback. Therefore, if you do not offer real-time customer support, inform customers about how long they will need to wait for your team to get back to them.
In the example of Freshbooks mentioned above, you can notice that this company lists its customer support hours and provides the current time in their time zone.
6) Add Context to Customer Questions
The quality of your customer support depends on the question a customer asks. For example, if their inquiries are clear and concise, you will be able to direct them to the right customer support agent and provide faster feedback. However, if their customer support inquiries are vague, your customer service team will need to ask additional questions before offering feedback.
Basecamp is a perfect example of how to create a detailed contact form. The form first asks a customer to select the type of support they need. In the box provided below, users can ask questions and share more details about their problems. The form also prompts users to attach a file or screenshot to make the inquiry clearer. Finally, it asks a customer to provide their email address and their account URL so customer service reps can see users’ account history and offer relevant feedback.
Ready to Improve your Contact Page?
Just because a certain type of contact page design and content works for Basecamp or Zendesk, this does not mean it will work for you. You need to test your contact page’s performance and adapt to your audience’s specific needs and expectations.