PandaForm New Year Discount Campaign for Users
Submitted by chpapa | January 6, 2012 | No CommentsHappy New Year! PandaForm is launching a 50% off discount for all customers. Existing users can upgrade their plan with a over 50% discount by 6 months prepaid.
We’ve start sending the discount emails to all our users , if you haven’t got the email, please contact us at: support@pandaform.com.
Merry X’mas and Happy New Year 2012
Submitted by chpapa | December 21, 2011 | No CommentsWe’ve start sending out our best wishes to all customers
Have you got our card?
Here are all of us, from top left to bottom right: Ben Cheng (Product Manager), Carman Lau (Developer), Rick Mak (Lead Developer), Billy Ng (Developer who brings you the formula feature), Rocky Chan (Developer), Roy Yuen (Project Manager), Kelvin Wong (Developer) and Frank Lam (Designer, who made the cute Panda!)
And Merry X’mas and a Happy New Year 2012 for everyone!
Update of Payment Processor For Existing Clients
Submitted by chpapa | August 22, 2011 | No CommentsThanks for everyone who have been using PandaForm. Starting from September 1, 2011, we will migrate our credit card processor to Fastspring, which is one of the largest and most reliable e-commerce solution available.
We will be sending the instruction for renewing PandaForm to all of our existing users gradually. And the sign up form on our website will be updated with the new payment process too in September.
We’re sorry for the inconvenience caused for our existing users. We will continue to improve PandaForm and bring better database & forms services to all of our customers.
Should you experience any problem with the payment or need further help, please feel free to contact us via support@pandaform.com
Ben Cheng (a.k.a PandaMan)
CEO of PandaForm.
Make Your Web Forms Compatible With Your Branding
Submitted by Celine Roque | April 26, 2011 | 1 CommentModifying Graphics and Layout
Add your logo. When you’re creating your form, go to the “Add Field” sidebar. You’ll see an “Image” button under “Layout Elements”.
When you click the “Image” button, you can paste the URL of your logo under “Image Address”, as shown below. It’s best to put it at the top of the form so that users can easily identify the company they are sending information to.
Tweak the text styles. You can also make some slight changes to the font colors and sizes in your form. When you’ve added a new field, you can simply include short lines of HTML code to make these changes. Click the screenshot below to load an example in a new window:
If you look at the sidebar in the screenshot, you’ll see that the following code appears around the text:
<font size=”5px” color=”#463E41″>Type your example text here</font>
The number following “size” indicates the size of your text. You can make it larger or smaller, depending on what your readers need. You’ll also notice that for “color”, there’s a 6-digit code that follows. This code identifies the color of your text. Each color has its own code. The code for white is “#FFFFFF”, for black it’s “#000000″, and for red it’s “#FF0000″. Click here for a complete list of these color codes.
If you don’t want to create this HTML code yourself, you can click here for a generator which will create the code for you.
Change the color template. Color is another important aspect of branding, so it’s important that you change the color scheme of your form to display the colors representing your business – especially if they are found in your logo. PandaForm allows you to do this easily. Visit the “Settings” area of your form, and under “General” you’ll find the theme selector. Pick the color scheme you want from the options in the drop down menu.
Include a signature. Though it’s not an absolute necessity, adding a handwritten signature to the form can improve branding, especially when accompanied by a short introductory message such as in the example we’ve created. In the example, we’ve used a sample signature from former US President Theodore Roosevelt, but the signature of your business representative is enough. This gives a personal touch to your form and it reminds your audience of the people they are doing business with.
Integration With Your Website
If you did the above steps right, your form should look like your website – at least in color, logos, and other graphics. Apart from making these cosmetic changes to your form, it needs to blend with the rest of your company website. Here’s how:
Add links to and from your website. By adding a hyperlink to the form from your website, as well as linking back to your website from the form itself, you can make it seem as if the form is a page within your site.
Redirect to your site after submission. An easy way to implement this would be to automatically direct your user back to your website after filling up your form. When editing your form settings, under the “General” tab you’ll find a section labeled “After the form is submitted” (see below). Select “Redirect to Website” and then add the URL of your website or “Thank You” page.
Below is a screenshot of the final form we created using these tips:
If you want to check out the form in action, click here.
Advanced Techniques
If the above methods don’t offer enough customization for you, there are more advanced ways to do this if you have experience in web development or have access to a professional web developer. PandaForm allows you to download the HTML and CSS source code of your form and integrate it within your site. You can access these files after clicking “Publish” and selecting the “Embedded” tag (see below). Feel free to contact us and we can have our team work on this with you. With advanced customization, your web form can be just as creative as the ones featured here.
How about you, what steps have you taken to customize your form?
Using Online Forms as Your Customer Support System
Submitted by Celine Roque | March 23, 2011 | Tags: client support, customer service, customer support | 2 CommentsA survey over at Get Satisfaction shows that 68% of customers leave because of the poor customer service treatment they receive. This is followed by a mere 14% leaving because they are dissatisfied with the service. According to the survey, the root causes of broken customer relationships include the following:
- Customers repeating themselves
- Being trapped in automated self-service
- Forced to wait too long for service
- Representatives are unaware of a customer’s value and history
- Customers can’t easily switch between communication channels
To avoid losing your customers due to bad customer service, it’s important to have an efficient system in place. But not all businesses can afford a full-time staff or complex software to provide client support. This is where online forms come in handy – they’re easy to use and, at the same time, they have all the features you need to log and track any client queries.
Here’s how to set it up:
Creating Your Form
The details of your form will depend on your business, but it may be useful to include the following questions and elements:- Form description. Avoid confusing customers and add a title and descriptive text to explain what your contact form is for.
- Contact information. This includes the name, email, and other important details you’ll need to get back to the customer.
- Query specifics. Ask your customer to narrow down the query. Is it feedback? A question for billing, sales, or support? Are they looking for a media kit or more information about your company? This is so you can easily forward the message to right people in your team.
- Urgency. Let your customers identify how urgen their request is. When you’re checking your new entries for the day, this will help you prioritize which messages you’re going to respond to first. You can use “Not Urgent”, “Urgent – Must have a response within 48 hours”, and “Very Urgent – Must have a response between 24 hours”.
- Closing reminders. Be sure to include a reminder for the customer to check the information they’ve filled out in the form. You can also add other important information, such as your typical response time.
To see an example of a finished form, you should click here.
Make Processing Easier
Since PandaForm allows you to tag your entries, you can use this to track the progress of each message you receive. When you’re editing your form, go to Settings > Process, then click the “On” button. You’ll be able to create new tags that will help you and your team mark the actions you’ve taken on each subject. The screenshot below lists some example tags, such as “Submitted”, “Pending”, “Resolved”, and “Escalated to Supervisor”.
The tags you need on your form will depend on your business and the queries you receive. For example, for a customer asking for a media kit, you may create a tag for “Materials Sent”.
Customize Your Thank You Message
Finally, you need to create a custom experience for the clients who use your form. Instead of automatically sending them the standard “Thanks for filling out my form!” confirmation message, give them more information about your response time, lead them back to your homepage, or tell them the next step they have to take (if any).
To do this, click the “Settings” button while you’re editing the form. Under General, you’ll see a section labeled “After the form is submitted”. There is an option to send a confirmation email or to redirect to a website.
Setting up an efficient customer support system doesn’t require expensive, feature-rich software and a full-time staff. Even with a simple online form creation app, you can automate the process while making it easy for your customers. Of course, the quality of the support they receive is up to you.
Create a Needs Analysis Template With Online Forms
Submitted by Celine Roque | March 15, 2011 | No CommentsWhenever businesses have a new lead or prospect, they have to conduct “needs analysis” to determine the best way to help them. This is the stage where you get to know what your client’s concerns are and what their project goals will be. You can use an online form app such as PandaForm to create a template for this purpose. Here are the steps you need to take:
1) Get contact information. If your needs analysis form is the first form your clients will fill up, it’s best to collect all their contact information from the start. Apart from their obvious purpose, you can add a client’s contact information in the individual reports, contracts, and other documents you’ll be sending to them. This gives your communications a personal touch that your clients may appreciate.
Click on the image above to view a larger image in a new window
2) Narrow down your client’s needs. After collecting basic information, ask your client more specific questions pertaining to the project. You might include the following:
- Which specific services do you need?
- Who is your target audience?
- What are your project objectives?
- When is the ideal start date for the project? End date?
Other questions may depend on the industry you are working in. Those who work as accountants or financial advisers may ask about a potential client’s income bracket. Web designers may ask how many web pages are expected to be designed. Tailor your form to reflect the kind of information you need to gather about your client and the project you will be working on.
Click on the image above to view a larger image in a new window
Tip: You can create individual forms for each service you provide. For example, designers can have one form for logo design, one for brochure design, and another for web design. This is especially important if you have to ask a very different set of questions for each service.
3) Create status tags to process records more effectively. When you receive a lot of client requests, it can be hard to keep track of them all. You can make it easier by using the “Status” tagging feature on PandaForm. This will allow you to tag each entry whenever a form is filled up. The default status should be set to “Submitted”, but you can add other status tags such as “Evaluated”, “Report Started”, or “Report Sent”, especially if you send your clients a summary or report of your analysis.
Click on the image above to view a larger image in a new window
4) Embed the form on your website. The best way to incorporate branding onto your form is to embed it on your website. PandaForm allows you to do this when you publish the form (see screenshot below). If this isn’t a good option for you, you can send your client the link to the form or add your logo within the form itself.
Click on the image above to view a larger image in a new window
Tip:Use your needs analysis form as a starting point, not as the final reference. By reviewing your client’s answers, you’ll be able to ask them more focused questions and discuss the various options they have. It’s extremely rare that after answering one form you’ll be able to start on the project straightaway without further discussion.
Entrepreneurs and freelancers must conduct this kind of survey first if they want to serve their clients well and help them reach their objectives. But doing so can be a lot of work. By using PandaForm to create a needs analysis template, you’ll automate this process and save yourself the extra effort.
Grab PandaForm Discount from Appsumo Lean Deals for SXSW!
Submitted by chpapa | March 11, 2011 | 1 CommentWell since we cannot physically goes to SXSW… this is how we celebrate it
YES! Grab PandaForm Free Lifetime Starter Plan with the Lean Startup Bundles of Appsumo now!

Major upgrade on PandaForm!
Submitted by chpapa | December 31, 2010 | No Comments
Thanks for using PandaForms. For the last two months, we’ve been busy working on the new interface for PandaForm to bring you better user experience.
The new interface aims at bringing the following major improvements (and lots of minor one):
- Better user interfaces to make it even more easier to use;
- You can now save frequently used queries under each listing of records;
- You can now archive or change status of multiple records at once;
- You can now export records in Excel format;
- Better support on Safari of iPad;
- Not exactly new “feature”, but Contacts and Mail-Merge will be obsoleted and replaced with better integration in future.
Like it? You can start using it today!
You won’t lose any data for using the new version, and other users in your account can still use the old version as they wish.
We hope you like the new interfaces, please tell us what you think or any problems you find with it.
Meet us in Inno Design Tech Expo!
Submitted by chpapa | December 2, 2010 | No CommentsWe will be exhibiting in the Inno Design Tech Expo of HKTDC from 2 Dec to 4 Dec. Come and join us in our booth 1A-D01













