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posted by hubie on Thursday May 09 2024, @02:26PM   Printer-friendly

https://adamjones.me/blog/dont-use-contact-forms/

Contact forms are almost always worse for users than just putting an email on your website. I explore why they're terrible, why you've done it anyway, and what to do about it.

Why your contact form sucks

Your contact form is completely broken

It's remarkable how many contact forms are just straight-up broken. A WordPress upgrade here, a change to your CRM there, and your contact form silently breaks.

At time of writing, B&Q's contact form just plainly doesn't work1. I am fairly amazed that a retailer with revenues in the billions doesn't notice written queries have stopped coming in.

[...] Contact forms are hard to get right, and often just a worse experience for everyone involved. Go forth and remove your contact form and list your email on your website now!

[Ed. comment: click through and read the lengthy, but hard to argue against, complaints about web-based contact forms]


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  • (Score: 3, Insightful) by zocalo on Thursday May 09 2024, @04:29PM

    by zocalo (302) on Thursday May 09 2024, @04:29PM (#1356342)
    This. Choice is always good, and there must be a customer services mail adrress or app of somekind behind that contact form anyway, so there's no real reason why you can't directly feed emails into it as well.

    If you're serious about customer support, you'll give your customers the ability to contact you in the manner that best suits them anyway; a webform, email, app (if you have one), social media, even by telephone or post if you want to get old school. If people want to reach out to you, then they usually have an issue they want resolving, so letting them do so in the manner they feel most appropriate not only ensures they can communicate what they need to (maybe they want to attach a photo of the problem?), but also means they are not even further irked by having to jump through what they may feel are additional arbitrary hoops designed to deter complaints.
    --
    UNIX? They're not even circumcised! Savages!
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