Contact Forms

[Nutty]

Hola me again!

I am running an ROI with a client in the UK and we are banging heads over their contact form.

They want to make the email address field mandatory whereas I have said NO, they said their reasons are they don't want the clients who don't have an email address and think that everyone should have one, they believe the whole world has an email address and those in their business certainly should, however, a lot of their business comes from third world countries!!!!!

I feel this is leaning towards bloody ignorant and have told them this, my thinking is that in this world of extremely competitive markets in all corners, we should not push any client away whether they have an email address or not, a lead is a lead no?¿

We run adwords for their products and we had a lead arrive on 16th August without an email address and today they send it to me to ask if we can find an email address for the client (they gave a phone number), this lead is now 3 days old and I very much doubt the client wants to know, or he went somewhere else - muppets!

I wanted other opinions on making a contact form mandatory - who does and who doesn't, I have given you a link here so you can see what I have done with regards to getting the leads to give an email address, however, my adwords landing pages have the contact form on the top right of every page but we don't have stipulations in red asking for email address.

http://www.comm-spec.com/contact.php (standard contact form)
http://www.comm-spec.com/manufacturers/23/Codan (landing page)

Look forward to your thoughts on this because I am ready to blow a chuffing gasket!!!!!!

Muchas Gracias Amigos

[pete]

I'd say it's time to back off. You are being paid to provide what THEY WANT. You have offered your opinion and they have rejected it. At this point the proper thing to do is forget it and move on.
.

[Nutty]

I would say you are probably right Pete - thanks

[caseyturton]

Hi:

There are scripts that can check if the email address submitted is valid. This can cut down on spoofs. You may want to consider that angle.

[torka]

Were you really hired to simply do what the client says like an outsourced automaton? Or were you hired as an expert?

If the client simply hired you as a clerk to do what they tell you to because they don't have the manpower, that's one thing, and by all means in that case do what they want and move on.

But if they hired you as an expert, then they need to respect your expert opinion. Unfortunately, after it all goes pear-shaped the client is usually unwilling to accept "I told you so" as an answer. You'll end up taking the fall for their failure. It may be time to fire the client and let them find a new "expert" to try to push around.

Sorry if that comes across as harsh.

My

--Torka

[ktaylor310]

I don't think I would part ways over a required field in a contact form - is that really a hill to die on? Are there other areas of the site where your advice is being disregarded as well or is this the only source of contention?

It is always frustrating when a client doesn't take your advice as far as design goes, but in the end it is about customer satisfaction... it is their site. I would never let a client make a change that would seriously impact site usability or search engine ranking - at least without clear warning - but I've learned over time that there are certain areas that you have to compromise on and you just have to decide whether those areas are important enough to warrant ending the business relationship or not.

I know it takes a little more time, but usually it is better to research a creative solution (like the java script mentioned above) that gives your client what they want while still accomplishing your goal.

To answer your question, we usually do require an email address because it helps cut down on spam, but never a phone number. Most of my clients deal with markets within the U.S. though. One client deals with a lot of missionaries outside the US and therefore has provided two ways to sign up for newsletters - one via email and one via snail mail. If you use the same concept for your contact form, you could have a link for "contact us via our online form" and "have a representative contact you by phone." That way instead of losing visitors w/o email addresses you could give them an alternative via phone.