Contact us pages. We’ve all seen them, we’ve all used them! You’ll know a good or bad experience can make or break your perception of a brand.
If you need to get in touch with a company, it’s the first place you’ll turn. Contact us pages are some of the most visited URLs on any website. So, are you making it as easy as possible for customers and commercial partners to get in touch?
A CPG contact page is one of the most valuable pages on your entire website. It should be a vital part of your digital strategy – setting the tone and creating a call to action for your visitors.
With this in mind, we explore what makes a great CPG contact page and how you can create the most effective contact form for your website. Let’s dive straight in.
What makes a great CPG contact page?
The goal of a contact page is to effectively convert a query into a direct action (getting in touch!) and clearly explain what users can expect from your response.
It almost goes without saying, but as well as the “contact” experience, your brand must ensure effective policies are in place to ensure people receive a timely, helpful and polite reply.
Now more than ever, customers and clients expect speedy and efficient service. Your contact page should set the tone, explaining how you can help – as well as communicate your brand’s identity and mission. Quite the ask for a single page!
What makes a great CPG contact page will differ from brand to brand, but there are core principles. With a focus on simplicity, straightforward user experience and building the contact page into your website’s overall navigation – you won’t go too far wrong.
Here are the five most crucial factors to consider when creating your CPG contact page.
1. Make it easy to find
First things first, there’s no point building a fantastic contact page if no one can find it! Make sure your contact page is accessible from your main website navigation, as well as links in headers or footers.
Whilst we’re on the topic of making it easy to find, use a widely known and understood term to point users in the right direction. The three most common terms are “Support”, “Help” and “Contact Us”.
Pick one and stick to it! We prefer “Contact Us” – as it’s completely unambiguous and contains an additional call-to-action.
2. Focus on your demographics
Who’s using your CPG contact page?
Is it a distributor, retailer or individual shopper? Your business clients and product users will have very different needs.
Consider adding an element of “self-selection”. Point distributors towards a more in-depth portal whilst directing product users to a simple, friendly feedback form.
If you have different solutions and different teams for each type of user – also consider where enquiries are sent. There’s no point superbly segmenting the user journey only for someone to subsequently sort through emails and redirect them to various individuals!
Ease-of-use applies to your team just as much as customers and clients. This will have the knock-on effect of improving response times too. It’s a win, win for all involved.
3. Build an effective contact form
Generally speaking, a simple contact form is the best solution for a CPG contact page. Despite this, you should also provide your email(s) and phone number(s) for any clients or customers preferring to get in touch through other means.
Keep the number of fields to an absolute minimum. “Name”, “Email” and “Message” are the essentials, but do also consider a drop-down for users to direct their message to the right team. Allowing users to identify as a Distributor/Retailer/Shopper is a simple, effective solution.
Adding links to FAQs or popular support questions as part of your contact page is also a nice touch. This will free-up your team from dealing with easily answered repeat questions.
As part of this, ensure emails coming from your contact page avoid any spam filters you’ve got in place! If customer enquiries aren’t getting through, this will result in seriously unhappy users – feeling their questions are ignored and problems left unsolved.
Conduct regular test-runs for your CPG contact page, ensuring messages are consistently delivered to the right place.
4. Set expectations at an early stage
Keep the copy as short and welcoming as possible – maintaining your brand visuals and identity throughout.
Let people know what they can expect as well as how and when you’ll contact them. A clear timeframe will reassure anyone contacting your company that you have clear policies in place (and genuinely care about their user experience).
Make sure your contact page is genuinely reflective of your business as a whole. You could include a video to build trust in your team and products, carry your humorous tone of voice throughout the copy or direct users towards other popular actions.
Remember speed-of-response might change at weekends or over holiday periods – so keep revisiting your contact page as part of your regular website audits and updates.
5. Personalize and humanize
Last but certainly not least – you’ve probably experienced this before – but the familiar refrain “I just want to talk to a real person” is crucial!
Customers needing help are often already stressed and discouraged. A completely automated, robotic system that doesn’t meet their needs will only compound the situation.
You can “humanize” your CPG contact page by including real names and faces of the teams responding to enquiries. Studies have shown that seeing other faces encourages more cooperative and convivial behavior. If staff would rather remain anonymous, cartoons and illustrations work just as well.
Whilst we’re on the topic of keeping it social. Could you include trusted brand partners and logos as “social proof” in the design of your contact page? This all adds to the subliminal messaging that your CPG provides great products and reliable service.
How can we help?
For more food distribution and CPG news, explore the Buffalo Market blog. From must-know business trends for 2022 to increasing your website traffic and calculating your carbon footprint – there’s plenty of advice and inspiration to grow your CPG business and supercharge your operations.
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