Contact Form Feedback Tips

Part four of our multi-part series on why feedback forms and any type of feedback is useful, we're examining the following: Despite the value of customer feedback, many companies want to avoid the surplus of emails they expect if they were to make their contact forms more accessible and encourage their use. Two of those reasons (avoiding rants and preventing time from being wasted) do occur, but as we've discussed, there is a benefit to still taking in those emails, learning from them, and responding to them accordingly. But there is a third reason – companies want to avoid customers that ask questions that are too obvious, and instead provide a FAQ and other tools to see if the customer gets their answer before wasting the company's time. Still, one could argue that even in that case, allowing the customer to comment may be advantageous.

Even if the question is consistently asked, and the answer should be easy to find, there are some benefits to still easily taking customer questions. These include: Customer Service – Customer service is a great way to create a relationship with a customer, and FAQs are rarely considered "good customer service." Responding with an answer to their question develops a relationship and shows that your company is committed to your customers. Additional Benefits – Does blocking access to a customer contact form simply to avoid customer contact really provide you with more value to your company than making the contact form accessible? Reduces Work – Customers email instead of looking at FAQs because customers can be very lazy.

But you want to reduce work for the customer as much as possible, and if they are expected to use the FAQ only they may give up before they make a purchase. Annoyance – When customers don’t find what they need in the FAQ, they may be more likely to be frustrated with your company, thus increasing their stress and reducing the effectiveness of your customer service. The counterpoint to this is that by asking a question instead of finding it themselves, they have to wait for your company to write back before they make the purchase.

Also, you will need to have someone on staff that can answer these questions as quickly as possible, and that may cost your company money. You'll need to figure out if those risk are worth the rewards.

But chances are that you don't receive as much benefit from forcing customers through a FAQ as you believe. Also, you can still provide a FAQ that is easily accessible without forcing customers through it before contacting you. We'll provide some closing thoughts in the next article.