Contact Forms Should Be a Last Resort During Working Hours

Every business website has a contact form. They were fine in 2006, but it's now 2026! They are about as lazy as a company can get, and if they are just a vanilla form (i.e., no baked-in context submitted with the form), then you have to ask yourself why they aren't trying to engage with their customers??

I also see people suggesting it's super efficient to add AI into the mix. There are some use cases where this might be useful, but who wants to talk to AI unless it's been implemented really, really well? I know that I don't, and it just drives me nuts going through chatbot menus because the person who created it is trying to be too cool for school rather than creating something actually useful.

So the answer certainly isn't a vanilla contact-us form, and it's not a super-fancy AI that doesn't hit the mark. It lies between these two! And it's a Human during working hours, and a context-sensitive contact form for out-of-hours.

The 5-Second Window

If someone wants to talk, they want to talk now. They won't wait 24 hours for an email reply.

I added a live chat feature. It's simple. The visitor/customer gives their name and email and confirms they are happy with our privacy policy. As soon as that happens, I get a text message on my phone. If I'm at my desk, I just load the live chat page; if I'm out and about, I can have the conversation on my phone or laptop. What's important is that the text message pretty much guarantees I will reply to the chat within a minute 99% of the time, and if I can't, I give a reason and hand it over to email/phone call at a later time.

When a visitor messages, I get a text on my phone. I can be anywhere. If I can reply, I click the link. The front end looks like WhatsApp to build trust, but the back end is built for my convenience.

For convenience, the system enables live chat at 8:30 am and disables it at 8:30 pm. On the weekend It's 10 am to 4 pm. I can enable/disable live chat as well - so if I know I'm not available then I can turn it on/off either via the website or via a text message.

Fallbacks and Context

When I'm not online, the system uses an enquiry form designed specifically for the page the user is on. So if they are interested in a mobile app, then the enquiry form asks a few app related questions, and the same with AI, websites, db work, consultancy and many other situations. Keeping it relavent is important - it shows I want to engage, I want to know their questions so I can help provide the best answers. Most pages also have the option of setting up a Zoom call via a Calendly integration. So if I'm offline, they may choose to set-up a Zoom call instead of contacting me via a from.

It's all super configurable. I can create new enquiry forms easily, and they can be simple or multipage complex surveys with rules that add/remove questions based on answers and so on.

Why I Built It This Way

If a visitor comes to my website, I want them to interact with me via chat. I can provide the best answers to their questions, and I can also tell quickly if I can help them or not. A Zoom/Teams call is best, then a phone call; a solid third is a live chat agent during working hours.

The functionality is all backed in, so we do not need third-party plugins or subscriptions for the live chat, and the next steps I want to add in content snippets to make sure the chat conversation impresses the person enough to book a Zoom/Teams call with me.

If you see the chat button, I’m around. If you don't, the form is smart enough to take a message that matters. These features are a part of my AI GEO business website solution, so if they are of interested then please reach out to me to find out more.