Contact a service

Show contact details for a service's offline support

The Contact a service pattern is a standard way of presenting offline contact details for a service: for example, telephone support information.

Principles

• Position contact information consistently throughout the service so that users learn where to find it
• Make contact information visible without further steps such as clicking or going to another page
• Make sure support channels are ready before you publish their contact information
• Don’t try to reduce support calls by making contact information harder to find

When to use this pattern

Use this pattern to show brief contact information for your service's offline support.

When to consider something else

This pattern works less well when information is long or complex. For example, if your service has multiple phone lines and email addresses serving different locations, groups of claimants or benefit lines, consider creating a separate page and linking to it from your service's footer.

Keep this space for offline contact details. For contextual help content on individual questions or pages, use something more immediately findable such as hint text or a details component.

Design goals and metrics

There are several different ways of presenting a service's contact information. This pattern recommends a standard.

The goals are to make it easy for users to find offline contact information (for example telephone numbers) and to make this more consistent across services.

Success measures could include people finding the information without problems in usability testing; there might also be a measurable reduction in contact to general enquiries numbers if people are able to find specific helpline numbers more easily.

Services using this pattern

This pattern is based on the designs used in Apply for a National Insurance Number and Apply for Pension Credit.

Discuss on GitHub

There is a public discussion for this topic on GitHub where you can share anything you think might be useful. Discuss Contact a service on GitHub.

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Last updated: 1 July 2022