What if a potential customer wants to BUY something from your website but have
a few questions or doubts that he/she needs to ask you first? If you have a FAQ
page, that's the first place he/she will definitely seek answers...but what if your
FAQ page still can't provide the answers he/she seeks?
Don't care?! Not your problem?! Would rather prevent spam than going through
all the trouble?!
If your website can't even provide even HANDLE the SIMPLEST form of communication,
you will definitely lose lots of potential customers (even loyal customers) because
simply can't contact you!
That's why the Contact Us button or link should be placed in a highly visible
or accessible position. This is common sense. Who would feel SAFE to buy from a
someone let alone a website that don't even provide the most BASIC form of customer
support. What if the product they bought is defective or they're having some trouble
accessing it?
If you're HIDING your website's email address purely because of spammers, especially
from those email harvester software, you do NOT really need to REMOVE your email
address from your web site. You can create and place a simple GIF image with your
email address on it using the same background color as your web page.
Example 1:
To contact us, send us an email to:
!["Placing]("http://www.marketing-2000.net/news/images/contactme.gif")
If you don't want to use an image, you can separate your email address so that
it doesn't look like an email address to email harvester softwares...
Example 2:
To contact us, send us an email to: sales at ebookok dot com
This approach is NOT recommended, because some visitors will actually send an
email to sales at ebookok dot com without first changing it to sales@ebookok.com.
Of course you can tell them to remove the at and replace it with @ and dot with
"." before sending it.
Alternatively, you can create a web form that allows visitors to submit their
questions to your email DIRECTLY from your website. You will need a little PERL
programming knowledge for this, or you can simply hire someone else to write it
for you!
If you do use web form as the ONLY way to contact you, make sure (1000 percent)
that the script is WORKING properly! Make sure you've set the permission for the
script, no errors, etc.
Note: When scripting in Perl, usually a simple MISSING ";" or "{", or "}" or
"Permission Not Set" errors are the main reasons why your script is not functioning
the way it should be! Always make sure your script is as BUG-FREE (not containing
any errors) as possible!
When your visitors submitted their questions to your through your website, it's
a good idea to display a friendly message like: Thanks for submitting a question,
I will be in touch with you shortly!
This is a good practise and it is highly recommended because your visitors will
know that your script works and their questions was indeed successfully submitted.
Some websites don't even bother to add a simple message like: Your question was
submitted.
They will just display a silly BLANK page or REDIRECT you back to their contact
page or homepage...leaving you to wonder if your message was indeed submitted properly.
Always try to answer all emails ASAP and personally - within 24 hours. Customer
service is IMPORTANT! Let them know that you care about them and they will be happy
to do business with you! :-)
That's all for this article, have fun placing those contact link!
