Independent Thinking Blog

Here’s Why Your Contact Information Should Not be an Afterthought

Let’s say you’re revamping your Web site.

You’re probably focused on the home page. That’s a good thing. It is, after all, often someone’s first impression of your business. The look, feel, messaging, and branding are all important.

Then once you get the home page nailed down, you probably move on to the core navigation. And you think about what you do, what you sell, and what you want site visitors to do when they land on your site.

Then, maybe, when you get everything else done, you throw up a “contact me” page.

But what does it say?

Your contact information sets a tone for your business.

Contact Information -- be reachable

Mine isn’t perfect.

What my contact page does do, however, is tell people how to reach me. There’s a phone number. And an email address. And lots of big buttons that point to me. It could probably use some work (I haven’t revisited it in a while) — but it does its core job.

It lets your reach out and touch a human.

You need to be reachable.

One Way to Showcase Contact Information

I was trying to purchase a gift for a friend last week from a company that charges a premium to put pretty gift packages together. I found the information in a year-end gift ideas list and parked it away because I thought it would be perfect for this friend. So imagine my surprise when I went to purchase a gift and discovered there was no way in their e-commerce system to actually send a gift to someone. Let me explain.

You know how Amazon lets you ship a package to someone else?

Yup, that detail was missing. There was just one name, email address, address option. So I did what any smart consumer would do and went looking for a phone number so I could call and we could figure it out. But there was no phone number. No social media channels. Just a form to fill out.

They had no useful contact information. And, yes, they lost the sale.

Contact forms came about in part as a way to reduce spam. When I was redesigning my site, my Web designer advised against including my email address so as not to make it easier for spammers to scoop it up. I nixed his idea in favor of a good spam filter.

Touchpoints are important. And every touchpoint is part of your brand experience.

In my case, my business starts with me. So it’s important that people who land on my Web site can also reach out to me.

Is your business reachable?

Feature photo by Tuncay (Flickr); Work Together by Radoslav Minchev (Flickr).

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