Customer experience
Make a failed online task easy to recover.
Check what customers see, what information survives and how they continue when an online form does not complete as expected.
A customer finishes a long enquiry form, presses Send and sees “Something went wrong”. In this hypothetical example, their text disappears and they cannot tell whether the business received the request. The form has given them three new jobs: reconstruct the message, decide whether to try again and find another way to contact the team. A useful review needs to cover this moment as well as a successful submission.
Separate a mistake from an uncertain outcome
A missing field and an interrupted submission are different problems. If a field needs correcting, identify it and explain the expected format beside it. Keep the other answers available so the customer can correct one thing without starting again.
If the service cannot confirm receipt, say that clearly. Avoid presenting an uncertain outcome as a definite failure and inviting repeated submissions. Agree how the team can check whether a request arrived before telling the customer to repeat the whole task.
Give each failure a useful next step
Replace a generic error message with an instruction that matches what the service actually knows. Explain what needs attention, whether anything was received and what the customer can do next. Do not promise that work has been saved unless the system has confirmed it.
In the hypothetical enquiry journey, an interrupted submission might need a message explaining that receipt is unconfirmed, with an alternative contact route and instructions for mentioning the earlier attempt. A rejected attachment needs different guidance: which file types and sizes are accepted, and how to replace that file.
- What happened, in language the customer can understand?
- Which information is still available?
- Has receipt been confirmed, rejected or left uncertain?
- What is the next safe action?
- How can the customer get help if that action fails?
Preserve useful work without creating another problem
Keep ordinary form entries intact during correctable errors where appropriate. Treat persistence after closing a browser as a separate decision: retaining information on a shared device may be unsuitable. Agree what should be retained, where and for how long, rather than adding indefinite saving by default.
Give the receiving team a way to recognise possible duplicates. That might be an existing reference or a check against the original request. The customer should not have to understand your internal systems to explain what went wrong.
Test recovery as a complete journey
Use labelled synthetic submissions in an agreed test environment. Try a missing required answer, an unsupported attachment and a simulated interruption during submission. Check the message, retained entries, keyboard navigation and the route back to completion on a phone as well as a larger screen.
Ask someone unfamiliar with the form to explain what happened and what they would do next. Then follow the test into the receiving team: a reassuring screen is only useful if the support route can resolve the uncertainty.
Rethink’s website conversion review can examine these recovery points alongside the main enquiry journey. Delivery support can help carry agreed improvements through implementation and testing.