As a small business owner, most of us need the ability to allow our customers/clients to respond electronically in a format that is easy to capture data, doesn’t require the customer/client to install anything, has a professional look, and works on just about any device (Apple, Windows, iOS, Android, etc….). Let’s talk about various methods and 2 specific options that are not prohibitively expensive or require significant IT knowledge.
So when we are talking about emails and texts, multiple applications are available to create drip campaigns or single outreach. These tools, while not free, are very effective at managing large volumes. If you are capturing data while the customer/client is at your website, you can create a customized HTML page that allows them to submit content directly to you via your domain. For a more personal touch and something that most small business owners can do themselves, let’s talk about Google and Adobe Forms.
Google Forms is a cloud-based application by Google that allows you to create a custom input form that is completed either by smartphone or computer. This will require a live connection anytime the client has the form open. Google Forms is automatically part of any Google account. You can access it by opening the Google website – make sure you are logged into Google in the top right corner – click the 9 dots at the top right – select Forms from the list. If you can’t see it, you can access it directly via this link: https://docs.google.com/forms/u/0/.
Google Forms is fairly simple and most users can self-teach by just creating some basic test cases. One of the features I like is that responses can be sent individually to a specific email address and/or they can automatically load into a Google Sheet’s file. Respondents do NOT need to have a Google account unless you turn on specific tracking and answer validation features. Forms do allow for some customization and branding….including image files (i.e. logos) but it will be within a specific framework/layout. Google Support also includes various Q & A as well as training material.
The 2nd option which will require only the form creator to have Adobe Standard or Adobe Pro (i.e. not the free versions) is to create a .pdf form. It is highly customizable and can give a very polished look. For those asking customers/clients for data that due to security considerations cannot be processed via a distributed server or needing something that the customer/client can download, complete when offline, and then send results when back online….this is the solution. While you can create an Adobe Form from scratch in Adobe, most of us find it more useful to create the form without the interactive fields (checkboxes, dropdowns, text boxes, etc….) in something like MS-Word. Save that file as a .pdf and then open it in Adobe to add the interactive fields. Just like Google Forms, you can create a “submit” button that will send the completed form to a specific website or email address for data capture. The process has a lot more options and unless you are farmilar with the nuances of the programs involved, you probably would be better served having a “geek” convert your content into a .pdf form format. A very nice feature of Adobe Forms is the ability to have digital signatures as part of the document.
So if you are a small business owner and want a form (potentially tied to a QR code) that a client can fill out directly from their smart phone or computer, give me a call/text/email/use my website’s contact me form and I can set you up!
