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POST-003After the order

Support contact structured

Checks whether your shop publishes a support email address or phone number that an agent can read, rather than offering only a chat widget.

What we check

We look for contact details in two forms: JSON-LD with a telephone or email, in a ContactPoint or on an Organization, OnlineStore, Store, LocalBusiness or similar entry; and mailto: or tel: links anywhere on captured pages, footer included. An email address written as plain text without a mailto: link is not counted, nor is a ContactPoint with no phone or email. We also note chat widgets such as Intercom, Zendesk or Tidio.

Why it matters

When an order goes wrong, an agent may need to contact your support for the shopper. A chat bubble is built for a person in a browser and gives an agent nothing to address. An email address or phone number in the page, ideally typed as customer service in structured data, is something it can act on.

How we check

We first read the pages already captured. Without structured contact details there, we follow contact links ("Contact us", "Kontakt", "Impressum" and others) and try paths such as /contact, with at most 4 extra requests.

PASS: structured contact data as described. PASS with a reduced score (80 out of 100) and a suggestion to add structured data: mailto: or tel: links but no structured data. FAIL: support is reachable only through a chat widget, or no contact details were found. SKIPPED when a linked contact page needs JavaScript to show anything, when support lives on a host we do not fetch (such as a help-desk subdomain), or when the crawl was too thin or blocked to judge; a chat-only FAIL stands even then.

How to fix it

  1. Add Organization JSON-LD to your home page with a contactPoint giving contactType "customer service", an email, a telephone number and availableLanguage.
  2. Publish a contact page that shows the email address and phone number as mailto: and tel: links, not only as plain text.
  3. Keep any chat widget as an addition, not the only route to support; if support lives on a separate help-desk site, also show the email and phone on your shop's pages.

What good looks like

<script type="application/ld+json">
{
  "@context": "https://schema.org",
  "@type": "Organization",
  "name": "Example Shop",
  "url": "https://www.example-shop.com",
  "contactPoint": {
    "@type": "ContactPoint",
    "contactType": "customer service",
    "email": "support@example-shop.com",
    "telephone": "+44-20-7946-0000",
    "availableLanguage": ["en", "de"]
  }
}
</script>

<a href="mailto:support@example-shop.com">support@example-shop.com</a>
<a href="tel:+442079460000">+44 20 7946 0000</a>

Sources