CUSTOMER SUPPORT
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Do not ask for unneeded information: This point ties in with the preceding
one. Asking for someone??™s mailing address, for instance, is not appropriate for a
support e-mail. This and other supplementary information can always be collected
in a follow-up conversation.
Make sure optional fields are clearly marked as such: Again, if additional fields are
appended to the core information, make sure the difference between a required
and optional field is explicit. (Chapter 3 discusses this in more depth.)
Provide detailed error messages: Keeping in line with good usability and contingency
design, write descriptive error messages in plain language. Avoid cold,
machine-like messages like ???ERROR: TYPE 897WTF PLEASE RETYPE EVERYTHING,???
when users click Submit; instead, provide humanized announcements like ???You may
have entered a bad e-mail address; please check the field and try again.???
Test the form: This may sound obvious, but there are plenty of documented cases
where contact forms have simply failed to work. In one case, an e-mail sent
through a national retailer??™s support section was returned to the sender asking
them to not send e-mail directly, but to use the contact form in the support section,
which they had just used.
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