It’s been quite a while since I last registered for new phone service anywhere, but I distinctly remember being asked if I wanted my number to be listed in the phone book. Sure. Of course. Otherwise how would someone find me if they needed to, right? On the other hand, maybe being unlisted is better — less chance of people calling that I don’t want to hear from.
I went with listed. I want people to be able to reach me if they need to — and phone books are for humans. People who need to call me look in phone books because they know my name. The computers that make outgoing calls for companies don’t use phone books, they just dial lists of numbers, so it doesn’t matter in that case whether I’m listed or not. If I choose to be unlisted, I block the people that I want to have contact me and do nothing to stop the people I don’t want.
Considering your web site
Are you listed or unlisted when it comes to your web site? This isn’t a question about whether you can be reached by the robots — this is a question about humans being able to reach out to you personally from your web site. Have you published your email address (or an email address for your company that a human reads) on your web site? Do you list your phone number? Address? In short, is it possible for me to reach you if I need to? If not, why not?
Think about it
Would you place an order online for a product or service and spend actual money on a site with no contact information? Are you comfortable entering personal information in a web form on a very anonymous site? I’m not. Amazingly, however, I regularly find web sites that ask me to register to receive a super fantastic tip but that provide me no human contact information. Is that your web site? Are you hiding?
If you need people to make your product or service work, you need to be listed. You need to be available and it needs to be easy. Go crazy — give me your email address, phone number, Facebook profile, Twitter account, and your amateur radio call sign. The more ways I can reach you, the better.
It should go without saying that I don’t want your home address or a live feed of your current location. This is about professional availability. Make it easy for us, your customers, to reach you when we have a question, complaint or suggestion. Don’t hide your email address because the bad robots will harvest it and use it for spam — they’ve probably already got it anyway. Make it easy for the humans and use robots to fight robots (spam filters, firewalls, etc.) and you’ll do just fine.
By the way…
I just did a little check on the blogs and web sites I visit most — I was able to find direct email addresses for primary people at all the big blogs I follow. Chew on that.
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I don’t put my email address on my site so that it’s clickable. Though I like your advice of “use robots to fight robots”, I’m not a fan of giving them more ammo. So my alternative is to use images for contact info and a contact form that comes to me. When I reply, they have my personal email.
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