I’ve just had an exchange of emails that started at the “Contact us” page on a company website. The website provided an enquiry form, I filled it in and got an email reply. I replied to their email and they replied to mine.
What’s the problem? The problem is that it was all unnecessary. The information I wanted could have been on the website. If it had been, I wouldn’t have needed to enquire and they wouldn’t have needed to reply.
The underlying problem is that too many organisations see their website as an opportunity to tell you what they want you to know, rather than what you in fact want to know.
In my web writing courses, I tell people that their websites exist to answer users’ questions. If they design and write their websites with that in mind, they save their companies time and money that is otherwise wasted in answering customers’ queries.
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