ConocoPhillips : Directing enquiries

User-friendly contact pages contribute to the bottom line.

The Site

ConocoPhillips, the world’s 10th-largest corporation, has a Contact Us page covering all its departments and businesses. Universally accessible from a utilities link it gives just one telephone number, that of the main switchboard at its corporate headquarters in Houston.

Instead, the page has a list organised by subject (for example, Retail Outlets and Products & Services, Newsroom, Vendor Relations) with links against each entry to a Contacts Form and Web site. The forms have standard fields but are labelled with a customised subject heading. In some cases the form is substituted by a ready-addressed e-mail. Telephone numbers are given on the subject web sites, though this can vary from a switchboard to named contacts.

The Takeaway

A company’s .com site is often the default address that customers and other key groups will use to begin an enquiry, and such visitors can yield a surprisingly substantial amount of revenue. ConocoPhillips categorised Contact Us page recognises this and is geared to providing a smooth and rapid transit to relevant web sites or pages where enquirers can find the information they want or a subject-specific contact. The slicker and more accurate the handover, the greater the likelihood of the contact becoming a profitable one.

At the same time, Contact Us also uses the web to manage more general enquiries, offering web forms and e-mails as well as the site links as a cost- and resource-efficient alternative to the telephone system. Again, the more user-friendly the system the greater the returns.

First published on 24 August, 2006