On the other hand:
...providing on-page email addresses means those addresses absolutely
will get scraped and spammed by bots...
...that's, er, spam *with* attachments - the worse kind..
...keeping a copy of what you've written: easy enough, you just send the
person who filled in the form a copy of what they sent too. Easy enough
with Gravity Forms / most WP form plugins - re. point 5, you just flag
this up on the form page: "fill in this form - we'll send you a copy for
your records too".
...form design: well, that's down to having a good designer, no?
cheers
Mike
_____________________________
*Mike Ellis *
Thirty8 Digital: a small but perfectly formed digital
agency:http://thirty8.co.uk <http://thirty8.co.uk/>
* My book: http://heritageweb.co.uk <http://heritageweb.co.uk/> *
> Leonard Will <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> 28 April 2014 17:53
>
> From the user's point of view, I hope that you provide proper email
> addresses for people to contact you rather than forcing enquirers to
> use a web form. I strongly dislike these forms, because:
>
> 1. They force a message into a tiny box, often with a limited number
> of characters allowed (which the user is not told about until they hit
> it and further input becomes impossible, or even worse, when they try
> to send the message and receive an error saying that it is too long);
>
> 2. It is impossible to see a complete formatted message in one of
> these boxes;
>
> 3. It is often impossible to add attachments;
>
> 4. It is very difficult to keep a copy of what you have written, and
> any such copy cannot easily form part of a thread of messages in
> proper email software;
>
> 5. If the web system sends the user an email copy of the message as
> confirmation, it often does not say in advance that it is going to do
> so, so the worries of point 4 still exist;
>
> You can use proper email and still achieve the routing you seek by
> having a list of email addresses on your "contact us" page, either
> giving separate addresses for each topic or by using "mailto:" links
> with embedded subject lines that can be used for routing. Clicking one
> of these will open the user's email software and give them full
> freedom to compose a message. We don't all belong to the limited
> 140-character "tweet" generation!
>
> Leonard Will
>
> Zak Mensah <mailto:[log in to unmask]>
> 19 April 2014 17:51
> hello all,
>
> As part of our new website redesign (see
> http://bmag-guide.fatelvis.mixture.io/ for a sneak peak) I need to
> tackle how the public get in touch with us. Do any of you manage lots
> of email well and if so how? For example do you use a ticketing system
> to ID every email with a unique ID?
>
> I have outlined my initial thoughts below:
>
>
>
> * The general contact form should have a list of options e.g. venue
> hire enquires, to help filter email to the right team
> * All incoming email should be routed through 1 primary shared
> email/ticketing tool which may have filters based on the subject title
> (see above point)
> * Routing all email enables us to get a true sense of the email
> traffic volume - currently we have no idea of the amount of email as
> it mostly goes to individuals
> * Setup a small number of shared email boxes so ALL of that team can
> see incoming, awaiting responses, answered. This reduces dependency on
> 1 member of staff and gives everyone the chance to share the workload
> * Should we have an SLA internally to ensure all enquires are answered
> within 1 working day etc
> * Could a similar system work for telephones?
>
> Any help either on the list or to [log in to unmask] very welcome
>
>
> Zak Mensah
> Digital Manager
> Bristol Museums, Galleries & Archives
> 0777 522 7272
> 0117 9223606
>
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