Email address or Contact Form or Both

Had an interesting situation today that made me think.

A client asked me if it is possible to publish an email address on the “Contact Us” page instead of using the normal contact form that would ask the visitor specific questions.
Secondly if it is possible to have it so that the visitors “outlook” open automatically when they click the email address.

My immediate response was to say that was a silly idea and that they just “lost me as a client” because I prefer to use a form for a website contact.
My reasons can be summed us as follow

Reasons to use a contact form

• its convenient
• Let's the user to stay on the same page.
• I do not have to copy and paste the email address
• I do not have to open my email client or log into my online web email client
• May take advantage of a browser’s auto fill function
• Forms can be configured to send to different departments
• Forms can be configured to send a copy of the email to the sender as well
• You can control what information to gather from your visitor if you need specific information
• mailto: links doesn’t necessarily open the email client. (I use a custom web based client and clicking the link the page just smiles at me)
• You can use captcha forms to limit spam bots

​The client insisted on publishing an email address. Luckily the content editor integrated with XMS Systems takes care of the hard work for a non-coder to add the necessary code to do that. So a quick point in the right direction got things going for them.

In the mean time I decided to do a bit of quick research using a good friend of mine called Google. Surprisingly the question is asked fairly often…

What is better user experience? To use a form or publish an email address?

Reasons given for publishing an email address

• Direct contact to a personalised email address
• Can save the email address
• Can save a copy of the email sent
• Can save a draft and come back later to finish and sent
• Users are hesitant regarding slack privacy policies in contact forms.
• Contact forms are perceived as a communication wall.
• Users are more used to their own default email program to send messages.

All valid points however I stumbled across on claim that the conversion between form and email is 8:1. That is 8 visitors used the form for every 1 using the email address.
I also found arguments that publishing an email address makes the site appear more legit.

The UK/European E-Commerce Regulations stipulates that a website needs to be able to respond to consumers promptly, a company may need to provide other methods of communication beyond its postal and email address. A “contact us” form without also providing an email address in also not sufficient;

Conclusion

I realise that this article is by no means a well researched and scientifically proven article but I think that the solution is simple enough.

Use both.
Publish the Contact Us form as well as your email address

• A form.
  It is quick, easy and convenient for the user and you have control over what information you want to get from the visitor.
• Publish an email address
  This way you can keep the 12% respondents happy and you do not lose the lead. You also comply with the possible e-commerce laws of different countries.
• Do not create a mailto link
  I feel it is a risk to publish the email address as a mailto link because someone might click the link and nothing happen because they do not use a default email client and they might get put off by a program that suddenly launches and covers the website they are trying to read or interact with. (I know I will).
• Contact Us page design and required information
  • Make sure your contact us page and form are easy to use and make sense to the user
  • Make sure your contact form is html5 compliant and email fields uses the proper annotation to allow mobile phone users to enter an email address easily
  • Let the user knows when they can expect an answer from you
  • let the user knows they will receive a copy of the email in their inbox.

XMS Systems integrated Contact Us form.

Luckily XMS Systems CMS makes all these things easy for you. With the click of a button your can display your default email address on your contact us page.

XMS Systems allows for an unlimited number of departments in the default contact us form. You have the option to personalise the department by entering the recipients name next to the department. That way, not only will the user knows the form email will be sent to the correct department, but they will also know who sits in that department and reads their email.

We at XMS Systems will gladly customise the default contact us page to ask for more and relevant information from your site visitor.