Online visitors are extremely impatient and many will make up their mind whether to explore your website within 10 seconds of landing on the home page. It is therefore vital to provide important information instantly… and what could be more important than your contact details?
How many clicks does it take to get to your contact details? One? That’s really too many.
If you have a contact page and the navigation button for this is at the top right of the page, then you are at least placing the information where visitors expect to find it and they are only one click away. Yet this can be too many clicks if your visitor is already interested in making a purchase from your site and is viewing a product listing. Maybe they want to ask a quick question about sizing. Having to to leave the product page, look for the contact page and then spot the phone number hidden at the bottom could be just too much of an annoyance. Or suppose you don’t understand the returns policy and want to phone to ask a question but need the returns page open as you call.
Placing the contact link on the footer navigation, along with the terms and conditions, returns policy and privacy policy is really indicating that you don’t want visitors to get in touch. You are giving the information reluctantly, but popping it out of sight where they will have to hunt to find it.
A company offering good customer service will be happy to be contacted and the best possible option is to provide easy access to contact details on the right-hand side of the header of every single page. That way, no matter which page a potential customer is on, you will be making it simple for them to get in touch. This satisfies the impatience of the online shopper, and just as importantly creates trust in you as a company. If an order is late or something needs to be returned, they can be confident that they will be able to pick up the phone and speak to a real person in order to get advice or help easily.
So the ideal place for contact details is:
- On every page, at the top right of the header.
Second best, if you don’t know how to do this:
- Ensure you have a “contact us” button at the top-right of the navigation bar
and that your phone number is prominent on that page.
