Why Nobody Fills In Your Contact Form

Your website gets visitors. Maybe a few hundred a month, maybe more. But the contact form? Tumbleweeds. Maybe one or two enquiries trickle in each week, and even those feel half-hearted. You start wondering if your website is broken, your pricing is wrong, or people just aren't interested.

Here's the truth: the problem isn't your business. It's your contact form. Between 95% and 98% of website visitors leave without filling in a contact form. That's not a typo. For every 100 people who land on your site, 95 to 98 of them walk away without making contact. And the form is almost always the reason.

The 6 Reasons People Don't Fill In Your Form

1. Too Many Fields

This is the biggest killer. Research from HubSpot and Formstack consistently shows that each additional form field reduces completion rates by approximately 30%. A form with just 3 fields converts dramatically better than one with 6. Yet most business websites have forms asking for name, email, phone, company name, subject, and a message box. That's six fields minimum — and often more when there are dropdowns for “How did you hear about us?” or “Which service are you interested in?”

Every field is a friction point. Every friction point is an opportunity for the visitor to think “I can't be bothered” and close the tab. They had enough interest to visit your site. Your form killed their motivation.

2. It Feels Like a Chore

Nobody enjoys filling in forms. Think about how you feel when you encounter one: slight dread, a mental calculation of how long this is going to take, and often the decision to “come back to it later” (which means never). Your contact form triggers the same response. It's a task, a chore, an obligation. The visitor was curious about your services. They weren't looking for homework.

3. Mobile Is a Nightmare

61% of UK web traffic comes from mobile devices. Now try filling in a six-field contact form on a phone. You're tapping tiny fields, the keyboard covers half the screen, autocorrect is fighting you, and scrolling between fields is awkward. Most contact forms were designed on a desktop and barely adapted for mobile. The result: mobile visitors (your majority audience) have the worst possible experience at the most critical moment.

4. No Trust Signals at the Point of Decision

The moment someone considers filling in your form, a wave of micro-anxieties hits. “Are these people legitimate?” “Will they spam me?” “How quickly will they respond?” “What if they call me and I'm not ready?” If there's nothing next to your form that builds trust — no reviews, no testimonials, no proof that real people have used your service — the visitor's natural caution wins, and they leave.

Most websites put testimonials on the homepage or a dedicated reviews page. That's fine for general credibility, but useless at the moment of conversion. Trust signals need to be visible right where the person is deciding whether to give you their contact details.

5. “We'll Get Back to You” Anxiety

The typical contact form ends with a submit button and the vague promise of “We'll be in touch soon.” When is soon? Today? This week? Next week? The visitor has no idea what happens next. That uncertainty is enough to stop many people from submitting. They don't want to hand over their phone number and then sit around wondering when (or if) someone's going to call.

6. The “Message” Box Problem

“How can we help?” or “Your message” — that empty text box is surprisingly intimidating. What are they supposed to write? A formal enquiry? A brief hello? A detailed description of their project? The blank box creates decision paralysis. People don't know how much to write, what level of detail is expected, or what the “right” thing to say is. So they write nothing and leave.

The Maths of a Broken Form

Let's be specific. Take a local service business getting 500 visitors per month:

Even if you halve those numbers for conservatism, you're still looking at tens of thousands of pounds in lost revenue every year. And the fix isn't more traffic, more ads, or more social media posts. It's changing the mechanism that converts visitors into enquiries.

The Fix: Replace Your Form With a Quiz Funnel

A quiz funnel solves every one of the problems above. Instead of a static form with six empty fields, you guide visitors through 4–5 simple questions, one at a time, with tap-to-select answers. Here's why it works:

• One question at a time eliminates overwhelm. Each step feels effortless.
• Tap-to-select answers mean no typing on mobile. The majority of your visitors can complete the entire funnel with their thumb.
• A progress bar creates momentum. Once someone is 60% through, they're far more likely to finish than abandon.
• Social proof at the capture step builds trust at exactly the right moment — when they're deciding whether to share their details.
• A personalised result removes the “what happens next?” anxiety. They see their answer immediately and can book a call on the spot.
• No blank text boxes. No need to compose a message. Every answer is pre-written and tappable.

The conversion rate difference is dramatic: quiz funnels typically convert at 15–28%, compared to 2–5% for a traditional contact form. That's not a marginal improvement — it's transformational.

See it in action: Try our live quiz funnel — it takes 60 seconds and shows you exactly the experience your customers would have.

“But Won't I Get Lower-Quality Leads?”

This is the most common concern, and it's understandable. If you're getting 10x more enquiries, surely the quality drops? Actually, the opposite is true.

A contact form gives you a name, email, and a vague message like “Hi, I'm interested in your services.” That's it. You have no context. You phone them back blind, spending the first five minutes of the conversation just figuring out what they need.

A quiz funnel gives you their answers to four or five qualifying questions: what service they need, their timeline, their budget range, their specific situation. By the time you call them, you already know exactly what they're looking for. The conversation starts at step three instead of step one. And because the funnel asks about budget, you're naturally filtering out people who can't afford your services before they ever reach you.

More leads, better qualified leads, and conversations that start further down the sales process. That's not a trade-off — it's an upgrade.

Quick Fixes if You're Not Ready for a Full Funnel

If you're sticking with a contact form for now, here are immediate improvements:

1. Cut fields to 3 maximum. Name, email, phone. That's it. Everything else can be gathered in the follow-up conversation.
2. Remove the message box. Replace it with a simple dropdown if you must ask about their needs. Pre-written options are always better than blank text boxes.
3. Add testimonials next to the form. Not on a separate page. Right beside the submit button. Trust at the point of decision.
4. Set response time expectations. “We'll call you back within 2 hours” is far more reassuring than “We'll be in touch soon.”
5. Test on your phone. Pull up your contact page on your mobile. Try filling it in with one hand. If it's annoying, it's costing you enquiries.

These tweaks will help. But they're plasters on the real problem. If your website is showing any of the signs it's costing you customers, the form is just one piece of a bigger puzzle.

The Bottom Line

Your contact form isn't a neutral feature on your website. It's either working for you or working against you. At 2–5% conversion, it's pushing away 95%+ of your visitors. That's not a minor inefficiency — it's the single biggest bottleneck in your business's online performance.

Every Simple Day website comes with a bespoke quiz funnel built in — not a plugin, not a third-party tool, but custom code designed to convert. It's included in the £2,995 price. If you already have a website and just want a funnel, visit our funnels page for standalone options.

Ready to stop losing 95% of your visitors? Take our 60-second quiz and we'll show you what we'd build for your business.