Should You Put Your Phone Number On Your Website?

The majority of websites will have a ‘Contact Us’ page or contact details of some form on their website. Contact details make the business more reliable, trustworthy and real. But not all companies include a phone number within those details.

Different companies have different reasons as to why they use/don’t use a phone line, but have you ever thought about those reasons?

There’s a lot of work that goes into creating the perfect website for your brand, so absolutely nothing should be overlooked. Especially if the overlooked item has the potential for a detrimental impact on your business and its customers.

So should you put your phone number on your website? Let’s look into the pros and cons.

Yes, You Should

It Builds Trust

Having a phone number on your website can build trust with your customers. It can be comforting for a customer to know that whatever problems they may face, they can speak to a real person about it.

Another added benefit to a local business would be that the phone number would also be local. At first, you may not think this is important, but people are more likely to support local businesses that have personality over a large, faceless corporation.

By having a mobile phone number at the top of the page, Neuroradiology Consulting really builds trust and rapport. It also gets across that this website is all about one person and their qualifications.

It Betters Peoples User Experience

People often have queries about certain products and services, so what better way to ring up and ask? It’s all well and good having emails and contact forms, but there is no quicker way of getting an urgent answer than using the phone.

Not having a phone may even be a negative in this situation. Taking too long to reply with an answer can mean your customer has already moved on to a competitor and even preferred the service over there.

Not only does Leigh’s Nurseries add a phone number to the top of the page, but they also have three different location specific numbers on the contact form. This ensures that they won’t be missing any opportunities for potential parents to get in touch.

It Can Clear Up Confusion

Have you ever been emailing someone and suddenly they seem to go cold? It puts you in a bit of a mood and you work yourself up. Only when you go over and ask what the problem is, they’re completely and utterly fine and the only problem is that you just overthought everything. It’s easy to do isn’t it?

When a customer is already confused and frustrated, they may be more likely to pick up on social cues that aren’t there. Too short of a sentence could make it seem like the company is disinterested, further adding to the customers annoyance.

Over the phone, it’s much easier to get your point across with your tone of voice, and the customer can truly know that you do care and only want to help.

No, You Shouldn’t

It Costs Money

Having a phone line means having someone to operate the phone line. This means either taking someone off their normal job to help operate the phone line, or hiring someone totally new to take it on completely.

This may be something that is worth doing for you business depending on what it is, but it isn’t always necessary.

If you’re a business that can do without a phone line, and you have other methods for customers to contact you by, why spend more money?

You Shouldn’t Have To

Jeff Bezos, CEO and co-founder of Amazon, says: “The best customer service is if the customer doesn’t need to call you, doesn’t need to talk to you. It just works.”

The Amazon web services page has no phone contact details in sight, and they are by no means struggling.

In today’s era of social media, there are multiple different ways to get in contact with people without picking up the phone. From the standard contact form to a Facebook messenger chatbot, there’s no end in ways for people to contact you and your business.

If it works for Amazon, there’s no reason as to why it shouldn’t work for your business!

It Takes Too Much Time

The main reason for companies not having a phone line is that it simply takes too much time.

When you’re on the phone, there’s not much else you can do. All of your attention is on that call that you’re on and it doesn’t give you too much room to multitask. However, with something like a chatbot, you can be answering multiple queries at the same time, keeping more people happy with the same amount of labour.

 

Now you’ve heard the pros and cons, will you be putting a phone number on your website or leaving it off?

If you have questions or want to see how we can help you with your business, get in touch!