Your website did its job: a customer found your page, filled in the form and clicked "Send". If the request lands in spam, reaches the wrong person or gets lost along the way, that is a customer your site won and your business never sees. Here is what needs to happen between that click and the moment someone calls the customer back.
Key Takeaways
- Every request is received server-side, protected from bots and recorded once
- It arrives in the right place: your email, your management software, or both
- The right person is alerted, and the customer knows the request was received
- The form asks only for what is necessary, with clear consent
- Requests are counted: a broken form shows up in the numbers first
1. Receive the Request Without Losing It
The form is the last step before contact, and a failure there easily goes unnoticed. A few rules make it reliable:
- Server-side handling: the server checks the fields, records the request, then passes it on. A form that hands sending over to the visitor's email program can fail without leaving a trace.
- Bot protection without friction: an invisible check, such as Cloudflare Turnstile, and a hidden field that only bots fill in screen out automated submissions without adding a step for your customers.
- No duplicates: a customer who clicks twice should not create two requests.
- A clear message if sending fails, with your phone number so they can reach you another way.
2. Route the Request to the Right Place
A useful request arrives where your team already works.
- Your email: the simplest option. Email sent in your domain's name must be authenticated, though: Gmail asks every sender to set up SPF or DKIM for their domain (Google). Without it, your own alerts may get filtered.
- Your management software: the request creates a record directly in your system, every field in the right place, with nothing to retype.
- Both: a record in your software, plus an email alert so nobody waits.
If several people handle different requests, add a simple field to the form, such as the service requested, and send each request to the right person based on that choice.
3. Alert the Right Person, and Reassure the Customer
The person responsible should know a request is waiting, without digging through a shared inbox. The customer should know the request was received:
- On screen, right after sending, with your actual response time.
- By email, if your process includes it, with a summary of the request.
An automatic reply can also deliver something useful. Our free diagnostic, for example, is emailed 2 to 3 minutes after the form is submitted.
4. Ask Only for What Is Necessary
In Quebec, a business may collect only the personal information necessary for the purposes determined before collection (Act respecting the protection of personal information in the private sector, s. 5). It must also publish information about its personal information practices on its website (s. 3.2).
In practice, for a form:
- Few fields: a name, a way to reach the person and the request are often enough. Every extra field should serve to handle the request.
- A link to your privacy policy, next to the send button.
- Two separate consents: the one that lets you handle the request, and an optional checkbox to receive your communications. A commercial electronic message requires consent, sender identification and a way to unsubscribe (CASL, s. 6).
This article describes a technical setup; it is not legal advice.
5. Count the Requests
A broken form makes no noise. You find out when a customer tells you they wrote two weeks ago.
- Measure every successful submission as a conversion in Google Analytics, with your visitors' consent. Our article on local marketing strategy explains how to combine these numbers with your Business Profile's.
- Compare each month the submissions measured with the requests received. A gap means a step is losing requests.
- Send a test submission after every change to the site.
- Set up an alert for when submissions fail or requests stop arriving on a site that usually gets them.
What We Set Up
This is the core of our web automation service for SMBs:
- every request is passed server-side to your management software or inbox, with bot protection and no duplicates;
- an alert when a request arrives, and an automatic reply to the customer where the mandate includes it;
- requests are counted, with an alert when submissions fail or requests stop arriving;
- conversion measurement in Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager, respecting the cookie consent Quebec's Law 25 requires;
- reports that separate observations, decisions and next actions.
New site or redesign? Forms are part of our web design service.