Website Contact Forms - Fixing Urgent Issues - Lucent Dynamics Blog

CONTACT FORM – E-MAIL ADDRESS IS INVALID

One of our long term clients emailed us this morning regarding an urgent issue with their website email. As part of our management of the website we quickly act, investigate the issue and identified the problem.

“Can you check my web site because the link to my email address is not working and it comes back as invalid email address? this is very important”

The client tested their website contact form themselves and had replicated an error. The client was obviously concerned, when visitors cannot contact the client through the website this can potentially result in a lost lead or a stumbling block to an important matter.

Simply by asking the client what exactly they did and typed into the form fields we quickly realised the error.

A valid email is required when submitting the form (prevent spam) otherwise the message is rejected. The client was omitting this and just typing in their name and message. The error message “Your e-mail address appears not to be valid. Please return to the form and check your details” is displayed however the client panicked and got in touch immediately.

TIP – RETRY CONTACT FORMS

Always try again ensuring you have filled in the correct information or even try a different email address.

E-MAIL PROBLEMS – FIXING ISSUES

Over the years this issue crops up often and sometimes the issue is not an issue at all as per this case.

When you use an online contact form and do not enter your email address or enter an email address incorrectly, the validation code that actions the request to send the email throws up an error. The website visitor is then advised of an error message.

However not all website visitors are tech savvy and in this case the visitor told the client the form did not work (feedback is always very important).

The client then approaches us with the issue. (90% of the time very little detail is provided. Always try to be as thorough as you can.)

At Lucent Dynamics we understand many users of the internet need assistance, either through not understanding processes, being scared something will break or not have the time to look into the problem and solution (a google search is your friend).

For us the client usually just needs assurance and direction to a solution, communication here is vital between client and website developer. We are more than happy to provide a prompt response.