This time of year is very busy in the garage. Not only do we have the season change upon us, but it is MOT time. Whether this is your first MOT (cars registered in September which are coming up for their 3rd birthday will now enter the MOT cycle) or if your seasoned four wheeled friend is an old hand at MOT’s, we thought you would appreciate a reminder of the things to check to prevent your vehicle failing the MOT due to easily rectifiable faults.

Lights
Front, rear, brake, fog, indicator and registration plate lights and reflectors work.

Horn
Must be in working order.

Tyres
Tread depth must not be below the legal limit of 1.6mm You can use a 20 pence piece to check that tread depth is at least the required 1.6mm.

Wiper and Washers
Before your test, it is worth checking that your wiper blades are in good working order and your screen wash is topped up.

Top Tip: Clean your wiper blades with newspaper and vinegar, the vinegar gets rid of all the grease and grime.

Is your pride and joy due an MOT?

Call 01604 491011 or email bookings@service-mot-repairs.co.uk to book!

There are over 1 billion websites on the world wide web today, and you’d be surprised how many of these sites make it difficult for their visitors to make contact with them. Simply listing your contact details is a good start, but you will increase the number of leads your website generates dramatically by using a simple contact form. Below are a few pointers from Kenny & Sons on why you should have a contact form on your site, and how to make the most of it.

1: You need a contact form, not just an email address.

Having your contact details listed on your website is a given (although you may be surprised at how many web designers will leave this out). Listing your telephone number and email address is a start, but to make more visitors contact you, you really need to use a contact form. Many sites choose to just list their telephone number and an email address with a ‘mailto:’  link. This will work fine, but what if the user hasn’t set up their email account on the device they are visiting on? A contact form is an easy way for visitors to contact you without having to leave your site.

2: Make sure you get the information you need.

Most of us at some point will have sent an email and forgotten to attach the file we were supposed to include with the mail. Similarly, it’s easy to forget to put your telephone number in an enquiry. Receiving an enquiry from John Smith who is looking to buy your product is a great start to making a sale, but what if he forgot to include his contact details when he sent his enquiry? There’s a lot of John Smiths out there- so you can either start hitting the phone book, or keep your fingers crossed and hope that he gets in touch again. A contact form can eliminate this with ‘required’ fields. This means that people won’t be able to submit the form until they have included all of the information you require.

3: Keep it simple…

People will be much less likely to complete your contact form if it looks like an application for a passport. Keep it simple. We recommend having around 5 fields- name, email address, number, company (if you’re a B2B business) are usually enough.

4: But it doesn’t have to be TOO simple.

While it’s important that your contact form straightforward and easy to fill in, it’s also an opportunity for you to help filter your enquiries. If you offer more than one service, you could give users the option to select which service they are interested in. This would mean you could make sure that the most suitable member of staff deals with that enquiry. If your website receives a lot of enquiries, you could also ask the visitor what their budget is- this will help you to filter out enquiries that are below your price point and help prioritise who to contact first.

5: Make sure it works!

This sounds obvious, but contact forms are actually quite complex, and there’s a lot that can go wrong. Make sure your contact form is working by testing it yourself. If your site is built on the WordPress platform, occasionally retest your contact form, as plugins can occasionally stop working after your CMS has been updated.

6: To CAPTCHA or not to CAPTCHA?

We generally advise that you never use a CAPTCHA (those annoying parts on a contact form where you have to squint to read a squiggly bit of text and type it out). They are a great way to stop spam, but unless you receive an ENORMOUS amount of spam, to the extent that you are missing genuine enquiries, we recommend you give them a wide birth. Like we said above, it’s important to keep your contact form simple and easy to use, and a CAPTCHA adds a bit of friction to the process.

7: Ok, I’ve made a contact form, now where should I put it?

In as many places as possible. A well designed, functioning contact form should fit in to your website in as many places as possible. We generally tend to place them at the bottom of every single page on a website. If the contact form itself isn’t on every page, at least make sure there is a link to it.

8: Act fast.

So, now you have your contact form up and running, and you’ve received your first enquiry. This might sound a little patronising to business owners, but it’s important that you act immediately. A user who has submitted an enquiry through an online contact form has most likely contacted other suppliers. Be the first to get back to them, and you already have a head start in getting the sale.

9: Need help setting up your contact form?

If you are not sure where to start when it comes to adding a contact form to your site, give us a call on 01832 420 010 or click here to contact us on our very own contact form! We’d be happy to help.