Most new B2B SaaS company websites look pretty similar. Nice WordPress theme with some pretty icons and screenshots, some customer logos. The ubiquitous item is the Contact Us page. But is Contact Us enough? Not even!!

The problem with just a “Contact Us” page is that someone’s gotta be pretty committed to hit that tab. Anyone who fills out the form or picks up the phone is either really interested, looking for a job, or most likely by a long shot, looking to sell you something.

Research has showed that more ways to contact equals higher contact rate. Use these judiciously, and not too many on a single page. Remember to respond very quickly, and respond to people in the same channel they contacted you. (Editor’s note, I haven’t yet seen the new HubSpot universal inbox, but apparently it does this automatically!)

Phone

Get a trackable phone number.  Tons of great services out there like CallRail and CallFire. It’s cheap and easy and integrates with your CRM. CallRail for example has a WordPress plugin to make it even easier.

Show the Number! Make the phone number obvious, not in tiny font in the footer. The tried-and-true top right corner box is still a great place for it.

Make it clickable. You know they’re on mobile, make it easy for them. At absolute minimum the html for this is

<a href="tel:+1-949-699-7111">+1 (949) 699-7111</a>
Or
<a href="tel:9496997111">(949)699-7111</a>

Call Me Back functionality.  Fewer vendors offering this, but still a little bit of code for a feature visitors appreciate.

Email

Most everyone’s got info@ or sales@or any other number of emails. Make them easy to find too, but most importantly do two things when you get an email.

1. Send an automated response to say you received the email, with an ETA of when a real person will email them back with a response.
2. KEEP THAT PROMISE. There’s lots of reasons to email a company, not the least of which is the intent that whoever mans the email will get it to the right person. You know who does this a lot? Journalists. You don’t want to miss THAT email.

Chat

Ah, the ubiquitous chat. Yay! Finally. It really is great and lots of people use it, so if you haven’t set it up yet do so. It’s easier than you think.

Regular Chat - If you’re going to do this, have someone whose responsibility it is to man it. It’s lame if no one answers all the time. Many chat tools make it available on mobile, so there’s really no excuse. Your CRM might already have the functionality, or use any of the other great tools like Drift or Intercom.

Chatbot - Most chat services also allow you to configure a bot. It’s not nearly as hard as it sounds, and you can collect information as if it were a form, and THEN hand off to a real person. You’ll be surprised at how effective it is. I recently tried this and found the conversions from the website to skyrocket, without me having to respond to every chat.

Facebook/LinkedIn Messenger

Live messages - Same as chat. Just be sure to answer them quickly. Mobile is even easier than most chats, so no excuse.

Messenger bot - Same story here too, use MobileMonkey or one of the other tools available for this.

Popups/Slide ins

There is definitely a place for this. Use your CRM or tool’s capabilities to segment your audience, and show relevant and timely offers, and you will probably get some qualified takers. You might be seeing one right now :)

Forms

Ah, forms. You didn’t think I’d forget you did you? Contrary to recent reports, forms are not dead. Just remember the best practices with all forms.

1. Ask only for what you really need for the purpose
2. Quid pro Quo. If you’re asking for contact in exchange for content, make the value match the ask. You may not ask for 10 fields to subscribe to your blog or view a case study. Nope.com.
3. Use progressive forms. Your CRM should have this. @dana naideth and @trevor burnett and I feel like we invented this many years ago, and now it’s commonplace. Each time someone returns to your site and fills out the forms, it asks them something more, not the same thing over and over again.
4. Make em pretty. Stuck? Here’s some ideas.

The research about the speed of contact is overwhelming. The often cited stat of following up within 1 hour being 7 times as effective as within 1 day from HBR is true, and faster is better. Make sure you have someone whose responsibility it is to respond, and keep track of those responses in your CRM

Read Part 2
Read Part 1

PS: Yep, that's my old phone. Still have it. I still have a flip phone too. I started my career in the wireless business, and I can't part with them :)