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Forms are a very powerful way of collecting information from your customer and communicating with them. In many cases, this will be the first point of contact between you and them. It is advisable to request just enough information from your customer that will enable you to respond efficiently to their query. Forcing customers to complete too many form areas can have an adverse effect at a very important stage in your relationship!

The form elements available to you should cover most eventualities and should be used sparingly. The most common form elements you would want to include are:

Full name (Text field)
Address (Text area)
Telephone number (Text field)
Email address (Text field)
Comments (Text area)

The best way to develop form pages on your web site is to experiment with them! All elements can be edited, deleted and re-created from the numbered list. You can test out your form and any validation by previewing your site through the Site URL option in your Control Centre. This will also allow you to view the form contents sent by email until you are happy with your forms.

A form, as used in BizSectors.com, is a method for allowing your site customers and customers to input information on a web page which can then be e-mailed to you on the click of a button. Forms can contain different elements depending on the information you would like to collect from your customer.

Example: A contact page form.

A contact page should provide your site customers with all possible methods of contacting you. This may be by Telephone, Fax, Mail or E-mail. These details should be clearly shown at the top of the page - your customer may be in a hurry!

If a customer prefers to communicate by email, then sometimes it's beneficial to collect as much information as possible in order for you to deal with their query quickly and effectively. Under these circumstances we would use a Contact Form.

The information would be sent by email to your email address in order that you may respond to your customers by replying to the email.

A contact form could contain the following elements that the customer would complete:

Full Name
Email address (very important!)
Telephone number
Subject matter (product query, request for price, delivery dates etc.)
Comments / Query: The detail information provided by the customer and their reason for contacting you.

Note: The more relevant information you provide for your customers regarding your products and services on your web site, the easier you make it for them to reach a decision about what to do next. This means you'll be happier with fewer queries to answer and your customer will be happy and informed. In any case, communication with customers is generally good for your business!