Contact Us: Email Form or Links?

Strictly speaking from a customer's viewpoint, do you prefer to see an email form in the Contact Us section, or would you prefer to see an actual email address, with perhaps one or more choices? Choices could be something like:

If you have a question about your order, please contact us at:

orders@yadayadayada . com

If you have any questions not pertaining to an order, please contact us at:

info@yadayadayada. com

If using the latter - I know when I have used this on other websites I have clicked the link I wanted and it brought up my email client with the outgoing address pasted in. How would I do that if I chose that option?

Thank you

As a customer, I don't care, as long as I receive an acknowledgement email that my message was received and a prompt reply to my question or comment. I don't have any reason to know the email address I'm sending my message to.

You don't need to expose your company's email addresses to the spammers scraping the Web to offer your visitors multiple options. That's built in to Zencart at Admin - Configuration - Email Options - Set "Contact Us" Email Dropdown List.

The minute you put an email address (in text format) onto your website, you risk it being harvested by spam bots. In a short time, that address will be plagued with spam, and this is often impossible to stop.

Professional websites never contain in-line email addresses for this very reason. Messaging is best handled by submission forms, where the recipient address is totally hidden.

Thank you. I personally dislike email forms, but at least now I understand their purpose and I will follow suit.