Contact forms may seem like small elements of a website, but they’re a highly valuable aspect of your marketing, customer retention, and business reputation. A carefully designed contact form is an essential tool that your business can use to collect feedback, generate leads, provide customer support, and fulfill countless other purposes.
What Is a Contact Form?
A contact form is a form that can be embedded on your business website for communication purposes. Customers can enter information into the form and submit that information to your business without using an email address. Contact forms are usually brief and easy to use, and once a customer has submitted their information, your business will have a way of following up with the customer, such as their email address or phone number.
Why Is a Contact Form Used?
Contact forms allow your business to gather information without publishing your email on your website. This is advantageous, since including your email on your site can lead to spam and phishing attacks: According to Hoxhunt, in 2024, 64% of businesses faced business email compromise attacks, and financial losses from the attacks averaged $150,000. Since 2021 and the implementation of malicious AI, phishing attacks have increased by 49%, highlighting the importance of using contact forms instead of sharing personal contact information on your business website.
Using a contact form instead of an email address also makes it easier for your business team to delegate customer service and support. If you have a multi-purpose team, you can set your form plugin to send form responses to certain team members based on the reason the user contacted your business. For example, technical support requests could be routed to your technical support team lead, while inquiries on your services from prospects could be routed to your sales team. This ability can help your business deliver a faster and more accurate response.
Contact forms can be used for communication with current customers as well as with leads. The form can allow customers to easily contact your business if they need support, want to provide feedback, or have questions about your services. Similarly, leads can ask questions, allowing you to build a relationship with them which could potentially convert them into customers.
How a Contact Form Works
You can create custom contact forms to include the fields that you need, and you can embed the form in your website. The user will enter data into each required form field and submit that data to your business. Your website form plugin will forward that message to an email address that you’ve assigned during the form setup process. You’ll receive an email message containing the data, and you can then respond to the customer or lead.
When the customer or lead submits the form, they’ll receive an automated email confirmation telling them their message has been received. You can customize the text of this email: For example, it’s a good idea to tell them how you’ll reach out to them, including an approximate timeframe in which they can expect to receive a response. You can also include other helpful information, like a link to your FAQs page, a phone number for live customer support, or a call to action (CTA), like a suggestion to follow your business on social media.
Types of Contact Forms
Businesses use many types of contact forms. Depending on your business structure and goals, one or more of these types of forms might be right for you:
General Inquiry Contact Form
A general inquiry contact form serves as a catch-all form for your website. You can use the form to allow site visitors to contact your business with questions. You can then use those form responses to sort the inquiries so the correct departments or teammates respond to each form submission.
Customer Support Contact Form
A customer support contact form serves specifically to collect customer questions and feedback. You can add questions that prompt customers to provide details about the issues they’re experiencing or their feedback on your products or services, so your customer service team has the information needed to respond to each inquiry appropriately.
Sales Inquiry Contact Form
A sales inquiry contact form can help capture lead contact information so you can add prospects into your sales funnel. By allowing leads to specify the product or service they’re interested in, and to add any questions they have to the form, your sales team can follow up with a personal call and the details the lead needs.
Feedback Collection Contact Form
You can also use contact forms to collect customer feedback. Publishing a customer feedback form demonstrates that your business is invested in the customer experience. The feedback you receive can help you identify ways to improve your business and also gives you a chance to reach out to customers to correct any issues they’ve experienced.
What Makes a Good Contact Form?
Just like every other element of your marketing campaign and business materials, your contact form needs to be carefully thought-out and designed. A poor-quality contact form can frustrate website visitors and may cause them to abandon the form altogether, so you could lose out on valuable conversations and feedback.
User-Friendly Design
Good contact forms are user-friendly. They should be easy for website visitors to find and access, and they should have a clear, minimalistic layout. The instructions need to be specific, and the fields should be laid out logically, usually starting with the visitor’s contact information, including their name and email address. Make sure that the fields are all clearly labeled to avoid any confusion for visitors and to ensure you’re collecting accurate data. The form should be accessible on different devices, including mobile.
Easy to Understand
In addition to a user-friendly design, a form needs to be easy for website visitors to understand. It should feature a clear call to action, such as a message encouraging visitors to submit any questions they have. Once the form is submitted, viewers should see a message confirming the submission was received and outlining what will happen next. They should also receive an email with this information.
Quick and Easy to Complete
Designing a great contact form means striking a balance between keeping the form short and easy to complete, while also collecting the information your business needs to provide an appropriate response. Try to include only absolutely necessary fields, keeping the form as short as possible.
Functionality
Most importantly, contact forms need to work well and reliably. Test the forms repeatedly to make sure they’re easy for users to complete and submit. Make sure that any error messages that appear clearly identify any fields that need to be completed, so users can easily correct the errors. Spend plenty of time verifying not only that the form works, but that you can access the submitted information and that you have processes in place to promptly respond to form submissions.
How to Create a Contact Form
Creating a contact form is easy, and you can use one of the many form builders available, like Jotform or Google Forms. If your website is built on WordPress, there are many plugins that simplify the process of creating a form. You can also code a form into your site. No matter which method you choose, make sure that your form is embedded within your site, so visitors don’t have to leave your site to complete the form.
Once you’ve determined how you’re going to build the form, you’ll need to plan out the form’s design:
Determine the Form’s Purpose and Fields
Start by identifying the form’s purpose, whether you’re creating a general inquiry form that could serve several different purposes, or a form specifically for a purpose like customer service. Think about the ways that visitors will likely be using the form and the type of information they’ll need to provide.
Next, determine the fields you need to include. A field to collect the visitor’s name and email address is essential. You may want to add a field for a phone number, too. You can use multiple-choice fields to let website visitors identify the purpose of their form submission, and a text box where visitors can write comments can help you gather any other important information.
Include a Call to Action
Include a clear call to action that helps website visitors understand why they should complete the form and what will happen once they do. For example, a call to action might be, “We always want to hear from our customers. Please share your recent experience with our business and let us know what we can do better.”
Craft Form Submission Messaging
Craft a confirmation and thank you message that visitors will see once the form is submitted. Set up an auto-response so submitters also receive the information via the email they provided. The message should include clear details about what will happen next and when website visitors should expect to hear from your business.
Set a Form Submission Email Address
Before your form is complete, you’ll need to set up an email address, or multiple email addresses, to receive the form submissions. Make sure you choose emails that you monitor daily so you can promptly respond to submissions.
Develop a Process for Responding to Submissions
Develop a process to respond to submissions before your contact form goes live. If multiple team members will be responding to submissions, determine how the submissions will be divided among them. Set a goal for your response time and make sure that you’ve prepared any resources needed, such as information on return policies or new products.
Contact Form Conversion Optimization
The higher your contact form conversion rates, the more submissions you’ll receive and the more opportunities you have to engage with potential customers or to retain current customers. In addition to the best practices highlighted above, like keeping your forms brief and making sure they’re easy to complete, there are several other ways to optimize your contact form conversion so you get maximum value from your forms.
Make Phone Numbers Optional
Many people are hesitant to give out their phone numbers, so consider making this field optional or not including it at all. Starting with an email address can allow you to make contact with a customer, and you could offer to contact them by phone once you’ve built a relationship, or if they need phone support.
Offer an Incentive
Consider offering visitors an incentive to complete a form, such as a discount or a free consultation. This extra incentive can help motivate individuals to complete a form, and it can be a particularly valuable technique when you’re looking to add leads to your pipeline.
Include Real-Time Error Validation
If you’ve ever completed a form, only to receive a message that there was an error that needs to be corrected, you know how frustrating delayed error validation can be. Some forms even delete the information, leaving individuals to complete the form again from scratch.
To avoid this issue, implement real-time error validation on your forms, which will highlight fields that are incorrectly or impartially completed in real time. Users can quickly identify and correct those errors, increasing the chances of a form conversion.
Experiment With Form Placement
Test out different form placements on your website, as you may find that certain placements drive more conversions. For example, putting a form above the fold means users can access it without having to scroll to the bottom of your site. Monitor form performance in different placements and see if you can further optimize your conversions.
Try Different Calls to Action
Your call to action encourages visitors to complete a form, so test out how different CTAs perform. Try including mention of your incentive, experiment with different CTA language, and see which CTAs your audience best responds to.
How to Ensure Security & Prevent Spam From Contact Forms
Contact forms are a frequent target for spam and bot submissions. These spam emails can drain your resources and make it difficult to sort through and find legitimate form submissions. They can also be used to send you malware and can jeopardize your site’s security. There are several ways to ensure your form’s security and prevent spam:
Use a CAPTCHA
To minimize spam, consider adding a CAPTCHA to your form. The CAPTCHA test, such as clicking on photos of a certain type of object, is intended to be easy for humans to complete but difficult for bots to navigate.
Some CAPTCHAs can be difficult and frustrating to complete, so consider the type that you choose to use. If you’re using a form plugin, you may be able to design your own custom CAPTCHA, such as asking submitters to perform a simple math problem.
Add Questions to Your Form
You can also add questions to your form that serve to sort human submissions from bots. By requiring that submitters answer a simple question, like which of two letters comes first in the alphabet, you can cut down on spam submissions without making forms overly difficult for humans to complete.
Implement Double Email Opt-In
A double email opt-in can ensure that the form submitter is using an authentic email address. Once they submit the form, they’ll receive an email with a link they must click to verify their email address. This type of spam prevention requires the submitter to complete an extra step, so it’s often best reserved for instances where the submitter stands to receive value from the form, such as if they’re signing up for an incentive like a discount or a free guide.
Publish a Privacy Policy
If your contact form collects personally identifiable information, like customer names and email addresses, you’ll need to publish a privacy policy identifying what type of information you collect, how you use that information, and how the information is shared. There are several laws protecting the privacy of individuals in states and countries. For example, the California Online Privacy Protection Act went into effect in 2004 and requires commercial websites and online services to provide specific privacy disclosures to users.
How to Automate Contact Forms
By automating your contact forms, you can streamline the process of responding to them. Automation saves your team time and means that your website visitors will promptly receive responses.
Use an Automation Platform
You can use automation platforms like Zapier or HubSpot to trigger a series of actions when a form submission is received.
Set Up Your Automation Trigger
You will need to identify a trigger that will begin the automated processes. When working with contact forms, that trigger is usually the submission of a form.
Identify Your Automated Actions
You can automate contact forms in many ways. For example, you might want contact form submissions to be automatically added to your CRM as leads, or for the data to be added to spreadsheets. You can also choose to have team members notified of new form submissions, or you might want to send a series of automated emails to individuals who have submitted forms.
Key Takeaways
Contact forms are valuable additions to your website and to your overall marketing strategy. By carefully designing contact forms to be user-friendly, you can increase your form conversions and use those forms to gather feedback, collect new leads, build relationships with your customers, provide customer support, and more. Adding forms to your website can boost your marketing efforts and customer retention while also giving website visitors an easy way to get in touch with your business.
Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs)
What fields should I include in a contact form?
It’s best to keep contact forms as short as possible while ensuring they collect the information you need. At a minimum, you’ll need to collect the submitter’s name, email address, and the reason why they’re contacting your business. Depending on the form’s purpose, you may need to add more fields.
How long should my contact form be?
The shorter your contact form, the better, but it’s important that the form collects the necessary information your business needs, too. When designing your contact form, try to keep the fields minimal so it’s quick and easy for users to complete.
Is it safe to collect data through a contact form?
It is safe to collect data through a contact form, but you’ll need to make sure that your website publishes a privacy policy disclosing what personally identifiable information you’re collecting, and how you’re using it.
