Wedding Business Solutions

Are you still making the phone number required on your contact form?

• Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Share episode

Are you still making the phone number required on your contact form?

Are you losing potential leads because your contact form requires a phone number? Do you know the impact this might have on your business? In this episode, I delve into why requiring a phone number can turn away potential clients and how you can adapt to meet modern communication preferences.

Listen to this new 9-minute episode for tips on making your contact forms more inviting and boosting your inquiry rates by making one simple change.

Episode Summary: 

In this episode of "Wedding Business Solutions," I dive into the controversial issue of requiring phone numbers on contact forms. Through extensive research from HubSpot, Salesforce, and other sources, I explain how making the phone number field optional can significantly boost form submission rates and reduce abandonment, especially among Gen Y and Gen Z, who prefer digital communication. While many vendors might favor phone conversations, requiring a phone number can deter potential clients. I offer actionable tips, like suggesting text communication and making gradual changes to improve lead engagement without being invasive. Tune in to learn how a simple tweak can enhance your inquiry rates and business success.

If you have any questions about anything in this, or any of my podcasts, or have a suggestion for a topic or guest, please reach out directly to me at Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or visit my website Podcast.AlanBerg.com 

Please be sure to subscribe to this podcast and leave a review (thanks, it really does make a difference). If you want to get notifications of new episodes and upcoming workshops and webinars, you can sign up at www.ConnectWithAlanBerg.com  

View the full transcript on Alan’s site: https://alanberg.com/blog/


Mon. Feb. 17th, Las Vegas, NV - Save $100 with this link: https://tinyurl.com/LVMini100

Mon. Feb. 24th, Miami, FL - https://events.humanitix.com/nawp

I'm Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you'd like to suggest other topics for "The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast" please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com. Look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2025 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com

Are you still making the phone number field required on your contact forms? Listen to this episode. You might change your mind. Hey, it's Alan Berg. Welcome back to another episode of the Wedding Business Solutions podcast. This is something that comes up all the time when I'm consulting with vendors just like you, and it's a bone of contention. And then the reason it is is because I know that you want the contact form to have the phone number because you, and maybe not all of you, but many of you would prefer to talk on the phone with your couples. You can get that conversation going in real time. And that's great, except that there is ample evidence that this is not a good idea.

I was doing some research today, and as I've been doing a lot lately, me and ChatGPT have been talking to one another because I do, when I go in, I say good morning or good afternoon or whatever, and I talk to it like a person. And that's why you might have heard me say, either here at a wedding MBA or something, that people over 45 tend to get better results from AI because we give it better instructions. And my assistant, who's 21, said, yeah, I give it eight words and you give it two paragraphs. And that's kind of what happens here. So I did a little bit of research because I'm working on a project with someone and I noticed that the form field for phone number was required. And I said, why? And they said, well, the client wants that. I said, well, does the client realize that they're getting fewer inquiries because of it? And they say, probably not. So I did a little bit of research, and according to HubSpot, it said that reducing the number of form fields from 4 to 3 and think about how many of you have way more than 4 on them.

Increase conversion rates by 50%. Think about that. Going from 4 to 3 increased by 50%. According to conversion XL Research, simplifying forms can lead to 160% increase in form submissions. And then I talk specifically about phone numbers and what happens with the phone numbers. Well, the first thing is you have to understand the Gen Y is phone averse and Gen Z is even more phone averse. So if you're requiring a phone field, you're already adding a significant amount of friction. So here's a couple of things.

The HubSpot study said that making the phone number field required can decrease form submissions by up to 37%. These are people who never fill out the form because the phone field is required. So think about that. You can't see, when someone goes to your website, sees the form, sees that the phone field is required and leaves that abandonment of that form, maybe not even starting because they see that's there, they're saying by up to 37%. And then this was a marketing experiments case study. When the phone field was optional, conversions increased by 42% compared to when it was required. You want to get more people who already have seen your photos, maybe watched your videos, read reviews, seen what you've written on your website and fill out your contact form. Make the phone field optional.

You've probably heard Mark Chapman here on the podcast and he said that when they're doing social ads, because that's his business, the I do society that putting in the phone field, put your phone number if you prefer texting. And they saw, I think it was an 80% increase in people giving the phone number because now you're telling them you're going to text. Now a study by Salesforce said that 77% of consumers prefer communication via email over phone calls. Now, I've said this before, you can ask for the call later or put it into a. P.S. so P.S. if you'd like to arrange a phone call or if you're a venue. P.S. if you'd like to arrange a tour, click here. If you're using a calendar app or something like that, and then just many, many other ones here. The Baymard Institute Usability Insights. They observed that optional phone fields reduce form abandonment rates, particularly among younger audiences, Gen Z and millennials. So making the phone feel optional stops people from abandoning your form. So you have to balance this between getting more right and thinking that the phone number, giving the phone number makes it better. Well, if you make it optional and they give you the phone number, they're giving you permission to use it. So that's really let them tell you that they want to use it and get more people to actually fill out the form.

And then I talked about submission rates I put in here specifically for Gen Y and gen Z. Right. 2023 Formstack study found that forms with a required phone number field saw a 45% lower completion rate specifically among Gen Y and Gen Z compared to when it was optional. So again, you don't see this because they never filled out the form in the first place. So making that form field optional could actually get you better leads. Because just because someone doesn't want to give you the phone number doesn't mean they're not a good lead. It just means that that's not their preferred way of communicating and they're not even giving you a chance. So let's start with that.

And then Salesforce said that 76% of millennials, 83% of Gen Z strongly prefer digital communication, email, text or chat over phone calls. A Twilio survey gen Z prefers texting 64% over phone calls as 20 versus, sorry, 20% for phone calls. Texting, they prefer 64% versus phone calls at 20%. The perception of requiring a phone number. Right. A Forrester research study in 2022 found that the phone number being required was perceived by Gen Z as being invasive by 68%. Invasive. Listen to that word.

And moderately invasive by 55% of millennials. So if you are requiring a phone number on your contact form, you are missing out on good inquiries. They don't want to talk to you on the phone. That does not make them a bad inquiry. It just means they're not ready for that yet. Because Gen Y will get on the phone if they feel it's necessary them, not you. Gen Z will. It probably will at some point as well.

And they will come in for a tour for your venue as well. You just can't rush that because that adds too much friction. Some more things, abandonment rates. The Behemoth Institute study in 2023 requiring a phone number led to a 27% higher form abandonment specifically among Gen Z and 21% higher for Gen Y. So once again requiring that phone number, people are looking at your form and going away and saying, no, I'm not going to fill it out because I don't want you to call me. That's again, a high commitment there. It's also a control issue. Control and autonomy.

Gen Z in particular values control over how and when they communicate. So having a required phone number is losing control because now that you're able to call them whether they want you to or not. So make it optional. Give them alternatives of how to communicate that are digital. Follow and pay attention to all of those. If somebody messages you on Instagram, or on TikTok, or on the Knot or Wedding Wire or on Facebook or someplace else, you better respond. If they inquire through your website, you better respond. I know you've heard me say this, but 17% of the over 500 companies that we secret shopped between last year and this year never replied at all.

You're just throwing money out the window. But you're also throwing out the window money by making the phone number field required. Because do you see these abandonment numbers on here? I mean, this is crazy that's on here. You can go look at the transcript of this. You'll see some of those those stats that are there because everything I quoted will be in the transcript. It's on my website@podcast.alanberg.com or whatever your platform is on Apple Podcast or Spotify or YouTube or whatever. The transcripts should be there as well. So if you're just make this one change.

Just try it out and see what happens. Engagement season is is in full force now. Change the phone number from required to optional. If you're using texting, try the wording that Mark Chapman said. Put your phone number if you prefer texting. Right. I have that on my fields as well and see what happens and see if you actually get more inquiries. And yes, you might have to have some more of those conversations digitally first and then you can eventually convert them to a phone, a zoom or an in person once you've earned their trust by meeting them where they are.

So I know it might be uncomfortable, but you know what it takes about what do they say, 30 days or 60 days for something to become a new habit. Once you get comfortable with that, you like so many people that have listened to this and have told me they've written business through texting, through Facebook messenger, through email, through WhatsApp, through digital things. I know I've done it and I know you can too. Thanks for listening.

I’m Alan Berg. Thanks for listening. If you have any questions about this or if you’d like to suggest other topics for “The Wedding Business Solutions Podcast” please let me know. My email is Alan@WeddingBusinessSolutions.com or you can  text, use the short form on this page, or call +1.732.422.6362, international 001 732 422 6362. I look forward to seeing you on the next episode. Thanks.

Listen to this and all episodes on Apple Podcast, YouTube or your favorite app/site:

©2024 Wedding Business Solutions LLC & AlanBerg.com


People on this episode

Contributor

Alan Berg, CSP, Global Speaking Fellow

Host