Your Web site tells customers all about you and your business. But how do you learn more about your customers? The answer is to add a form to one of your Web site pages.
While forms can be complicated to build from scratch, Office Live Small Business makes it easy with the Form Designer module. The module enables you to design and add a form to any page with a few clicks. You just open a page in Page Editor, click Module, and then click Form Designer. Form Designer lets you choose various types of data to collect in your Web site form and save it to a secure database that only you have access to. You can even set it up to send you an e-mail alert when you receive new information from your forms.
To read more about working with forms, check out this Help article: “Collect customer information using a Web page.”
Here are a couple important things to keep in mind before you start using forms:
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To view the form data you collect, the form must be associated with a built-in Office Live Small Business application that saves it and makes it available for you to view and use. That’s why Form Designer makes you pick an application for the form to connect to—such as Contact Manager.
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Several pre-built forms are available for you to use instead of Form Designer. For example, to collect the e-mail addresses and related information you need to distribute an e-mail newsletter to customers, consider using the special Subscribe to newsletter module instead of Form Designer. If you have a Contact page, use the Contact us module.
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Do not use Form Designer to collect credit card information or other sensitive data. Customer information submitted with the Form Designer module is transmitted in an unencrypted format across the Internet and could be intercepted and read.
If you want to make your site a two-way street where you and your customers exchange information, forms may be your best friend.
Skip Chilcott