Adding a contact form to your online store is a simple step that can provide many benefits. In fact, 49.7% of marketers state that online forms are their most effective lead-generation tool. But if you only use Shopify's native contact us form, you might miss out on some of these benefits.
In this article, we'll explain everything you need to know to create a contact form for your Shopify storefront. Learn why contact form submissions are valuable, get a step-by-step guide to creating a custom contact form, and see our picks for the top five contact form builders available today on the Shopify App Store.
Why add a contact form to your Shopify store?
Adding a contact page or popup to your Shopify store can provide several distinct benefits. This includes benefits such as:
- Makes it easy for customers to contact you: Ninety percent of customers consider customer service to be an important factor when determining whether to do business with a brand. One key element of great customer service is making it as easy and convenient as possible for customers to get in touch with your support team.
- Keeps customers on your website: Providing a contact form lets customers contact your company directly from your website rather than having to pull up their email or another channel, giving you more opportunities to make a sale.
- Capture customer email addresses for follow-ups: A contact form is one of the best ways to collect customer contact information and generate more business leads.
- Makes your support available 24/7: Adding a contact form to your website enables customers to contact your support team outside of normal business hours. This is especially helpful to small teams that wouldn't otherwise be able to offer 24/7 support.
- Categorizes support issues: Contact forms can be a helpful tool for categorizing support issues if you include a dropdown menu in your contact form widget that allows customers to select why they're contacting you.
How to add a contact form to your Shopify store
All Shopify themes on both Shopify and Shopify Plus include a native contact form that you can add to your storefront. If you would like to use Shopify's native contact form, here is a step-by-step guide on how to add a contact us page to your store:
- Step #1: From your Shopify admin, click on "Online Store" and then "Pages."
- Step #2: Click "Add Page."
- Step #3: Choose a title for your page, then type it into the "Title" box.
- Step #4: Type any text you want to appear in a header above the form in the "Content" box. You can also leave this section blank.
- Step #5: Go to the "Theme Template" dropdown menu in the "Online Store" section of your Shopify admin, then select "Contact."
- Step #6: Click "Save."
This will add a new page to your Shopify store, complete with a basic contact form.
Why Shopify's native contact form isn't enough
Shopify's native contact form is nice because it's free and easy to set up. Compared to some other contact form apps available today, though, it's quite lacking. For one, Shopify's native contact form offers limited customization options. While each Shopify theme includes a unique form that matches the rest of the store's theme, you won't have much room to change how your form looks beyond this.
An even bigger issue is that you won't be able to customize the information that the form requests. This limits the value of your contact form when it comes to benefits such as categorizing support issues. Meanwhile, third-party contact form apps tend to offer far more features and functionality while being much more customizable. This makes them a better choice for Shopify stores that are serious about leveraging the benefits of a contact form.
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5 great Shopify contact form apps for your ecommerce store
If you would like to embed a customized contact form into your Shopify store, here are five great contact form apps that you (and your customers!) are sure to love.
1) "Contact Us" Page by Gorgias
If you are especially interested in utilizing your contact form as a branch of your customer support services, Gorgias' "Contact Us" page is an excellent option. This contact form integrates with your Gorgias helpdesk to provide a range of powerful capabilities: viewing a customer's previous customer support history when responding to contact form submissions, creating support tickets for each form submission, or adding a contact form to your live chat widget for customer support outside business hours.
Key features:
- Embeds easily on your website, live chat widget, or within your help center
- Automatically creates a customer support ticket for form submissions
- Includes information on a customer's support history with each form submission so you can create personalized responses
Pros:
- Exists within your current customer support ecosystem for improved synergy between support channels
- Provides detailed customer data and informs personalized responses to contact form submissions
- Automatically provides a contact form for customers who attempt to contact live chat support outside business hours
Cons:
- Limited form customization options
- The contact form is not available as a standalone app
Using Shopify Inbox for customer service? Discover Gorgias, a Shopify Inbox alternative for your store.
2) Easy Contact Form by Zotabox
Zotabox is a package that includes 20+ promotional sales tools for ecommerce stores, including Zotabox's Easy Contact Form. One of the biggest benefits of this well-regarded form is that it's easily customizable, enabling you to add images, add custom fields, and change a variety of the contact form's design elements, like colors and text fonts, without coding. Similarly, you can quickly embed Easy Contact Form in your website without coding.
Key features:
- Loads asynchronously so that it won't slow down your website
- Supports file uploads
- Features an "I agree to" checkbox for verifying email opt-ins or asking customers to agree to terms and conditions
Pros:
- Affordable pricing
- Loads of customization options
- Easy to set up, customize, and embed with no coding required
Cons:
- Contact form is not available as a standalone app
- Interface can sometimes be a little buggy
3) Constant Contact Marketing by Combidesk
If you are looking to primarily utilize your contact form as a tool for lead generation, then Constant Contact Marketing by Combidesk is a great solution. Constant Contact Marketing is an email marketing platform with a drag-and-drop email builder, email marketing automation features, and a customizable sign-up form designed to help you grow your email list. This sign-up form is tailored specifically for lead generation. However, it can be customized to serve as a more traditional contact form, too.
Key features:
- Customizable sign-up form
- List management tools and list segmentation features
- Drag-and-drop email builder
- Email automation tools
Pros:
- Integrates with Constant Contact Marketing's range of email marketing tools for easily marketing to the leads that you collect
- Easy to customize and embed with no coding required
- Offers high email deliverability rates
Cons:
- Contact form is not available as a standalone app
- Limited email automation workflows
4) Custom Contact Forms by Eastside Co
Custom Contact Forms by Eastside Co is an affordably-priced contact form app that offers plenty of bang for your buck. This app provides a capable contact form builder that fully customizes the size, shape, layout, and contents of your contact form. As an added benefit, Custom Contact Forms also provides visitor tracking tools to track visitor activity on your website.
Key features:
- An auto-installer with a live editor that enables you to preview how forms will look on your site
- Visitor tracking features
- SMS notifications when a customer places a contact form submission
Pros:
- Forms automatically inherit your theme's CSS to blend into your store
- Affordable pricing
- Seamlessly integrates with Klaviyo, MailChimp, and Zapier
Cons:
- Limited customization tools
- Slow or unresponsive customer support
5) Improved Contact Form by Awio
Another contact form that scores many points for being affordable and feature-rich is Improved Contact Form by Awio. This app allows you to add a floating "contact us" button to all the pages on your store. Clicking on this button will open up a contact form widget that sends messages straight to your email inbox. Along with this "contact us" button and contact form widget, Improved Contact Form also offers other widgets you can utilize on your store, including lead capture forms, promotional banners, coupon pop-ups, and social media buttons.
Key features:
- Adds a "contact us" button to the corner of every page on your site
- Enables you to create a contact page that you can link to from your navigation menus
- Enables you to target widgets by page URL, location, traffic source, and device
Pros:
- Affordable pricing, including a completely free plan that allows the unlimited use of up to three widgets
- Single-click widget adding
- Seamless MailChimp and Constant Contact integration
Cons:
- No support for file uploads
- Some reports of forms not coming through to inbox
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How to connect your contact form to your customer service hub
Connecting your contact form to your customer service helpdesk is a great way to utilize contact forms as a branch of your store's customer support. You can do this process automatically if you utilize Gorgias' "Contact Us" Page. Gorgias can also integrate with a wide variety of other ecommerce tools, including third-party contact forms.
The ability to connect to your contact form to automatically create customer support tickets for each form submission is just one of many ways a unified, centralized, omnichannel helpdesk can provide a great customer experience. According to research from PWC, 73% of customers point to customer experience as an important factor in their purchasing decisions, and 42% say that they would pay more for a friendly, welcoming experience.
To get started utilizing all of Gorgias' powerful tools and features to provide the type of customer support experience that will set your store apart from its competitors, get started with Gorgias today!
