[Mulberry]

My boss wants to make the telephone # field a required field on our website, but I think it may be a stopping point for the end customer. I think people use email contact because they can't or don't want to recieve phone calls. However, he will not budge without some sort of evidence that this may have a negative effect on the volume of emails which can turn into sales leads. I has been working fine up to this point and I'm convinced we shouldn't require the phone # field to allow the customer the optional privacy. Please help. Expert resources would be great. Sorry if this is the wrong forum I'm a noob here.

[datahound]

I would say you are right. If a customer is in a hurry, or wants to be called they will give a telno. I personally prefer to do business by email as I can make decisions in my own time and I cannot be pressurised. Also everything is written down so there is no he said/she said situations.

The opposite arguement I guess is that time can be wasted emailing people and if you never hear from them again it can be frustrating. Also if customer puts typo in address field there is no alternative contact.

I would say leave it to your boss, its his business. You have your opinion, I have mine, its his bottom line.

At the end of the day net savvy people will just type in 555 555 555 and pass the required test anyway.

[talk2frank]

Flip some psychology on him.. I reckon more people will provide a valid phone number if it isn't required, and as datahound says, people who want to enquire but are pissed of with the required field will enter invalid details.. This is the same as making people aware of your returns policy if you sell products. the more you tell them they can return things, the less likely they will want to, because they know they can.

Hope that makes sense.

[skyrocket]

Don't know of any research but it comes down to common sense and user-testing in the end I guess. Make it a required field and analyse the results after a few months. You'd have to have a good customer support desk with trained phone operators to turn the phone leads into sales. At the end of the trial if the phone leads results in 30% more sales then I guess your boss was right. Doesn't hurt to try. He's only thinking of the bottom line, as pointed out earlier - that's what a good boss should be doing.

[ropeyjoe]

Its a delicate balance to strike. A sales lead is only useful if it can be followed up on, and annoying as it is, a telephone call is almost always the best way to follow up a lead.

Email can be (and is very often) ignored, mailshots usually end up as bin fodder.

In contrast, its much harder to ignore someone at the other end of the phone, usually people will listen for a while out of politeness. The point is, you have to positively engage with a caller, even if you're not interested.

It depends on your product or service a little, but I'd have to say, I agree with the bossman. Once they've reached the point of filling in the form, a required phonenumber won't (in my opinion) put customers off.

A sales lead that is difficult or impossible to follow up isn't much use, and if the most effective way to do that is by phone, I'd have no hesitation makng it compulsory.

Ropey Joe