Easy Contact Forms

Forms: The Good, the Bad, and the Beautiful

admin — Sun, 10 Feb 2013 07:59:50 +0000

No one likes to fill out forms on websites: they can be unclear and time consuming. When shopping online, completing the form often is the longest and most frustrating step! As a business owner, it’s important to collect information to process orders, but it’s even more important to build a relationship with your customers so that they come back to your site! Our product can help you do just that.

Here’s news you don’t hear every day: your customers don’t come to your site just because of the product you sell or the service you provide. Sadly, you have a lot of competition out there, and more than likely they can get a similar product or service elsewhere, maybe even cheaper. The truth is, you will probably win a lot of your customers because of great customer service, and because your website is easy to use and understand.
People shop online because it’s convenient: they can buy exactly what they want, when they want. No longer do they have to fight for a parking space or stand in line. With that being said, online shoppers want their experience to be simple, safe, and straightforward.
Your clients want your product: and are willing to pay for it. They shouldn’t have to jump through hoops to submit their information to you: they should know what exactly you’re requesting, and why it’s important to their transaction. Your clients are smart enough to know that collecting more than that is unnecessary and a waste of their time, and they simply won’t fill them out. Explaining to your clients which fields are required (i.e. email address) and which fields are not (i.e. home phone number) allows them to see right away what information they want to share with your business, and what information they want to keep to themselves. This is also a great way to show that you value their privacy and time.
When it comes to forms, it’s simple things that go a long way. For instance, your clients will appreciate a simple validation message that lets them know exactly what information is needed. Simple phrases like, “Please enter your phone number to let us contact you”, is more descriptive and polite than, “This field is required”. We are unique in that there are three ways you can describe a field: you can use a basic field label, like “Name” or “Phone Number”, you can use a description, like “XXX-XXX-XXXX” to indicate a phone number, or you can use an actual validation message like the one described above.
Collecting relevant information is important to you and your business as well: having fields that collect only relevant data helps you understand your clients’ needs, and then meet them. From there, you’re able to maintain records and databases that are specific to your business. Meeting customer demands is that much easier when you are able to keep adequate records that are easy for you to understand.

Website Safety: Form Security and Anti-spam Protection

admin — Sat, 09 Feb 2013 09:38:56 +0000

Easy Contact Forms allows you to use multiple ways to create a safe browsing and shopping experience.

As a website owner, there’s nothing more important than the safety and security of your customers as they venture onto your site. And while your customers don’t want to worry about spam, they also don’t want to jump through hoops and lots of steps to make a purchase. Everyone uses “captchas” now: the random little phrases and numbers that help prove that customers aren’t robots. Although they are effective, even these can be considered boring and tedious: especially when you mistake an “L” for a “1”.

Luckily, Easy Contact Forms are designed so that you, the site owner or administrator, has the ability to increase the site security step by step, in multiple ways. You can avoid using captchas altogether, and employ only hidden forms that are unnoticeable to your site visitors. You can even use anti-spam tools. Most importantly, all of the form protection methods are optional, and can be used in any combination.
Easy Contact Forms uses several anti-spam protection methods, both hidden and open. The hidden anti-spam tools include server-side validation, hidden fields for auto-spam tools, and set form completion times. The server-side validation allows for the entering of only valid information. This protects the site from auto-spam tools. Hidden fields create traps for auto spam tools. If the hidden field is filled in, it means that your customer is not a customer at all, but a robot. Set form times (minimum and maximum) create a time allowance for completing the forms: for example, a form set time can be between 20 and 60 seconds. Completed too quickly, (i.e., one second) or too slowly (i.e., one day), and you know the form has not been completed by a human.
The open anti-spam tools used by Champion Forms are effective as well. You can easily add a Google reCaptcha field to your form. The input submitted by your site visitor is validated by the reCaptcha server. If its submitted by another computer, it will be blocked.

Softpedia Award

admin — Fri, 20 Apr 2012 09:11:05 +0000

April 20, 2012. SoftPedia announced that they are awarding Easy Contact Forms with SoftPedia Pick Award!

Awards are given to products that we think are excellent. Awards are given based on our experience and judgement, and only to products which the majority of our reviewers agree deserve it.

SoftPedia