Misleading Sales Leads
April 3rd, 2007 by 
Chris
Your site’s contact form should ask your site visitors what they want instead of requiring them to choose from a list of what you offer. Asking a visitor to choose product A, B, or C instead of asking what he needs for his unique issue often creates a misleading sales lead due to a disconnect between what you have offered on your site or form and what that visitor actually needs.
Assume your site visitor is contacting your competitor who asks, “What can we do for you?” while you ask, “Would you like A, B, or C?” The visitor is given the opportunity to tell your competitor exactly what he wants, which is different from what he was forced into telling you (either A, B, or C). From the beginning, your competitor is working to solve the customer’s problems while your salesperson is trying to sell him something that does not fully meet his needs.
The logic of designers and marketing is often that a good salesperson will further qualify the lead with questions and discussion anyway so it is better to get more detailed information from the lead for the purpose of improving the marketing. While it is true that a good salesperson will follow up on a lead with great questions to discover the true need behind it (and that salesperson should be applauded for doing so) you should also consider how many site visitors will not fill out a contact form that only lists products they do not need. Why would they?
Narrowing down the needs of the customer with your contact forms can be helpful for your sales team (and marketing efforts) but keep the choices you offer general (category level) and offer an open-ended method, such as a comments box, to ask how you can help your customer solve his problem.
Related Lead Optimize Articles:
Get More Leads from Contact Forms
Subscribe to the Lead Optimize.com Newsletter and get two free e-books immediately.
Posted in Lead Optimize, Selling | 
May 2nd, 2007 at 8:55 pm
This is an excellent bit of advice. Asking potential internet leads to select from a list of ABC items is akin to those annoying answering machines that force you to choose a number, when none of the numbers lead to what you really need to talk to someone about. Offering a potential leads the opportunity to speak their mind is a measure of insurance for them that you will listen to their needs down the road, as well.
Jerry
May 3rd, 2007 at 4:43 am
Your comparison to an electronic answering system is an excellent one. I find again and again places where profitable but non-traditional visitors would have left the contact form if not for open-ended questions. Thanks for the comment.