In addition to other comments: You mentioned that the purpose of gathering the extra information is to help make sure that the right sales person gets in touch.
It is possible to get users to divulge more information without affected response rates too severely if you clearly tell them how it will be used, and if that use is consistent with what they want your organisation to do for them. So, for example, let's think even of "number of employees". Suppose that you've got Bob who deals with little businesses (10 or fewer employees) and Sheila who deals with larger businesses (11 or more). You might be able to persuade the user to tell you if you explain that. Or maybe you could even ask the appropriate question directly as in: "Bob deals with smaller businesses (up to 10 employees) and Sheila deals with larger (11 employees or more). Which sales person would you like to call? ()Bob ()Sheila" OK, I admit it, that's not exactly a brilliantly drafted question and you've probably got way more than 2 people in the sales force. And maybe there are other answers the user might have like "please don't call me at all". But if the person is filling in the form *because* they want the right person to call them, then giving you information that aligns with that user goal would be just fine. What I'm trying to illustrate is that instead of simply demanding information that might seem irrelevant, you can get better results by really thinking through the conversation that you're having with the user in the context of the relationship you're trying to build between your organisation and that user, especially if you focus on the user's goals at that point. Best Caroline Jarrett www.formsthatwork.com "Forms that work: Designing web forms for usability" foreword by Steve Krug ________________________________________________________________ Welcome to the Interaction Design Association (IxDA)! To post to this list ....... [email protected] Unsubscribe ................ http://www.ixda.org/unsubscribe List Guidelines ............ http://www.ixda.org/guidelines List Help .................. http://www.ixda.org/help
