A Web Form is a piece of coding that allows a website or app user to enter written information and have that information sent to the website or app owner.
These days, when people think of web forms, they think of sign-up sheets, or perhaps account-opening forms, but web forms are far more diverse and dynamic. Some can be used as automated troubleshooters or selling platforms, some can be used for games, others to influence people, and some may be used to allow people access into private parts of a website or app.
The great thing about web forms is that they are only limited by people’s imagination and creativity. As web forms have become more popular and more available, people have found new ways to use them, and they have adapted the form’s structure and form backend to fit whatever new forms they have come up with.
The Ability to Choose Good Design
Web form tools are pretty diverse, which means people can build forms that work as auto-updating checkouts, or forms that push add-ons and upsells. People can build forms with moving parts, with moving graphics, and that alter based on the time of day.
The point is that people can “Choose” these designs. In reality, some of the most effective forms are pretty traditional. They don’t look like 1990s spreadsheets, but they are uncomplicated and are not over-designed.
In this day and age, you can have a web form that leaps off the page, or one that is sleek, sophisticated and efficient. The choice is yours.
Improving Your Business By Lowering Staff Hours
Try to find ways that staff hours may be lowered by simply removing tasks that a web form could do in advance. As simple example is with support issues. Rather than having somebody call you, wait on hold for a long time, and then slowly explain their problem to somebody.
Have the user write their problem in the support form, have the support form suggest a few fixes, and if that doesn’t fix the problem, then have the user submit the form and have one of your agents call back with a solution.
Another way to lower staff hours is through having your web forms warm the leads for you. When people have to ask for quotes, why not have the web form take all the details so that your staff can move straight into talking about what you have in stock rather than having to harvest information from a potential customer before being able to make an offer.
Do Web Forms Have Special Features?
As mentioned earlier, you are only limited by your imagination. For example, many people use automated replies. In fact, for things like password changes, an automated reply is outright expected by website and app users.
You can use dynamic forms that alter themselves based on what the user chooses. For example, if somebody picks something from a drop down list, then the rest of the form alters itself to fit what the user chose.
The same can be done with tick boxes. For example, if somebody ticks a box that says they already have a subscription, then the rest of the form will not promote any sort of subscription unless it is on a higher tier.
Branding and Personality
People who are good at adding branding and personality to their products will have no problem adding it to their forms, and where this is good, it is actually the lack of branding that has the biggest effect. It is blindingly obvious when a website has used a cheap plugin to add a form to their website because the form doesn’t match the theme or personality of the rest of the website.
A good form is not going to pay your bills, it isn’t going to make your social media posts go viral, and it isn’t going to generate enough money for you to quit work and retire. Nevertheless, with the right level of intellect and creativity, web forms have a lot of potential and can quite easily improve your business, save you money and increase sales.