Every Enquiry From Your Contact Form, in One Inbox
Messages sent through your contact form are now stored in your dashboard as well as emailed to you. They can be read, marked, replied to and searched from one screen.
The problem with email-only
A contact form that only sends an email has one point of failure and it is silent. The message goes to spam. The address is one you stopped checking. Your mailbox is full. In every case the message is gone and nobody involved knows it happened.
For an actor, one lost message can be one lost job, and the odds of ever finding out are essentially zero.
What the inbox gives you
- Every message, in one place, permanently.
- Read and unread state, so nothing quietly slips past.
- Search, which becomes useful surprisingly quickly.
- A count in your header that matches the number actually waiting, as fixed in notification counters that match.
- Reply from the dashboard, sent from your address.
Spam handling
Public contact forms attract a steady trickle of junk. Obvious spam is filtered before it reaches you and kept in a separate view rather than deleted, because filters occasionally get it wrong and a genuine enquiry from an unfamiliar address is exactly the kind of thing a filter mistrusts.
Check that view once a month. It takes ten seconds and it is the one place a real message could be hiding.
Reply speed matters more than reply quality
The single most common failure is not losing a message, it is answering it eleven days later. The window in which a reply is useful in this industry is short, and a two-line answer today beats a considered one next week.
Set the email notification for this on, even if you switch everything else off. Guidance in notification preferences.
Make the form worth filling in
A form with eight required fields collects fewer messages than one with three. Name, email, message. Our older piece on creating a contact page covers the rest.
Create your free actor website and get a contact form that works.
