Sometimes it’s the obvious that gets overlooked

At my house, we tend to get quite a number of duplicate catalogs in the mail. Either I’m listed twice with two different last names or my husband and I both get sent copies of the same thing. When this happens, I usually try to call to remove one or both names from their list. But I ran into a problem here, as this company only provided their vanity 1-800 number (on every other page of their catalog):

At the time, I did not have access to a phone with a normal keypad—my smart phone was equipped with a non-standard keyboard—and I couldn’t call in until I went online and found a visual on Wikipedia.

I’m willing to bet that the phone number listing never gets a second thought each and every time this catalog gets proofed.

Experiences like this should remind us to periodically review old assumptions about how consumers communicate with brands. Time to retire that yellow page ad and put funding towards paid search instead? Have you devised a mobile strategy for reaching your target market?

No matter the medium, always provide consumers with multiple ways of contacting you. Make room for the numeric phone number beside your vanity number on printed catalogs.  For online retailing, make sure there is an email contact and phone number in addition to an online contact form at minimum. See this post for more info about designing usable contact forms.