How do you verify if the email you sent via their Contact Us form is really sent?

You might consider making the suggestion to them, rather than asking us “Why don’t people do something better than they do?”

In point of fact, on a well-designed website with good programming, what you suggest is exactly what happens: Your own email address is used to send a verification message of “This is what we received from you. You should expect a response from us within … etc.”

The fact that your “page back” still shows the message is indicative of nothing except that the page has not been refreshed since you sent the message. That could also be evidence of sloppy programming, but I don’t know enough about web design to venture more of an opinion than that.

If you received an acknowledgement of your message, then that’s evidence that “something” was sent to them. So send the message again, and add the suggestion from above.

This is why the “contact us” form died many years ago. The existence of one is a good sign that the site was developed in 1999 or is some kind of scam. If they do have another way to contact them, remind them that it’s 2014, and you are capable of contacting them via a real email address – if they would provide one.

How do you tell any email is really sent? Ideally you’d get a confirmation to your inbox like @cwotus mentioned.

Some browsers will keep your input in a text box as part of your history, so that’s most likely browser based rather than something to do with the form or the website. I just went back from this page, clicked forward, and this text is still here in Chrome. Honestly that’s some pretty sweet progress from the days when an accidental backspace press could lose everything.

As far as forms being “1999”, I’d say there’s still a place for contact forms, if guided information is needed for certain types of contact or if there’s some routing going on for the back end. You don’t always want everyone’s email exposed for harvest either, depending on the IT resources available for a business, the form may be the best place to handle all those things.

Overall dropping a message into a contact form is just like leaving a voice mail. They should “get in touch shortly”, if they don’t, follow up. Right?

Well, it’s a good excuse to contact them to make sure they received it and get your foot further in the door.

@funkdaddy: “As far as forms being “1999”, I’d say there’s still a place for contact forms, if guided information is needed for certain types of contact or if there’s some routing going on for the back end. You don’t always want everyone’s email exposed for harvest either, depending on the IT resources available for a business, the form may be the best place to handle all those things.”

Honestly, when was the last time you saw a “contact us” form rather than an email address? I suspect it was on a site where an ad prompted you to “punch the monkey and win a prize”. The reason a “contact us” would feel so scary is that they aren’t used. If they are, it’s like stumbling on one of those gif-heavy Geocities sites. It feels very sketchy to be using one in 2014. Back in the day, webmail was not yet ubiquitous, you were dependent on new internet users who were likely running AOL and didn’t understand email, and the form was designed for the newbie. In 2014, a “contact us” form is explicitly telling the user that s/he doesn’t know how to use email. It’s telling the user that they don’t respect the user enough to give them what they deserve: a log of their actions and communications with a business.

I’m not saying that breaking convention in web development doesn’t have its place. But there is no excuse for a contact us form. And I have no idea what the email-harvesting comment is about. If you’re providing your email in the “contact us” form, so they will actually get back to you, then what’s the difference?

@hominid – I build websites for a living. I’d venture I’m OK at it, meaning in this case I’m not building geocities sites for folks or anything along those lines. My target would be people who run their own business and usually have 5–50 employees.

I’ve built several interactive contact forms in the last year. The options are to either go back and forth via email several times to get all the information you need, or guide people initially so you can help them right away… hopefully making as much information optional as possible.

As far as the last time I saw a contact form, they’re pretty much the norm. There are entire companies built on providing effective contact forms and the processes behind them to make answering easy. I’d say twitter has some decent technical chops and uses an array of forms to contact them rather than email addresses. I like The Verge’s form as well. Amazon takes emails through a form as well (behind account login, so no link). Do you really think these are insulting?

As far as email harvesting, if you list an email on a page, expect tons of spam there. Spammers have spiders just like search engines, but they specifically search for emails, dump them in a database, and sell them. There are ways to keep it from happening, but the most effective is just not to list the email.

btw, gifs are back baby!

@funkdaddy: “The options are to either go back and forth via email several times to get all the information you need, or guide people initially so you can help them right away… hopefully making as much information optional as possible.”

@funkdaddy: “Do you really think these are insulting?”

Yes. Very much so.

As a user I want to communicate with a person via email – not be dropped into a vacuum or a bucket of some list in a dropdown. When interacting with a large, faceless entity on the web, don’t strip people of what little control they have and keep them from managing their own interactions (and history).

Those “contact us” forms you linked to made me angry. Not a good start. I’d be less frustrated to find a contact page consisting of a P.O. Box address.

Thank you all.
Contact Us forms are on majority of sites, half of them in addition to “info@.....”. I have no problem with them if it helps them direct the mails to the right party immediately. But no “CC me” box?