Contact us. (If you can)
February 24, 2008 by Mary Ellen
Is it just me or have you initiated contact from a website and had the email bounce? The typical “contact us” page offers an option to connect with potential customers while not promoting a specific email address. Sadly, the option doesn’t always work.
In the past few weeks I found this to be true for a major ad agency, a chamber of commerce and a business-to-business service. In each case my ISP sent me an error message saying there was no such address.
What are you thinking, people? Test. Click all links. Dial all numbers. Can you afford to miss an opportunity to connect with potential customers? The business bar has been raised. Given the stiffness of competition today, your business needs to win the easy, no-brainer contests. So, if you haven’t reviewed your online site in some time, take a moment and do so. Prevent the stupid mistakes.
Once you’ve accomplished this feat, consider your response time; customer communication deserves to be a top priority.
Only a small percentage of potential customers will let you know about a problem. I experienced this for myself when one an inquiry from my website was sent to Outlook’s junk mail. (There’s another consideration for your site; safelist your webmail address.) The disgruntled prospect contacted me a second time and we discussed the problem. Fortunately, after our conversation, this prospect was willing to overlook the delay. No question, my experience was the exception, not the rule and I’m grateful for the reprieve.
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My favorite is emails from “Do not Reply” and “No Reply” Well, okay – but what if I want to buy something from you? Duh-oh!
Some tech genius somewhere conspired with a financial efficiency geek to come up with this. Cuts costs in customer service and – well, gosh, we replied didn’t we, so we’re being responsive! And, now it’s standard “customer service avoidance” practice.