In this guide, we will show you how to effectively improve the checkout phone number field and prevent delivery complications.
One field in the checkout — and how much trouble it can cause. All it takes is a customer entering the phone number incorrectly, and parcel delivery suddenly becomes impossible. Then you are left with the complicated task of finding the correct details. Fortunately, these situations can be prevented quite easily. Take a look with us today at how to do it.
The phone field in the WooCommerce checkout
The checkout of your WooCommerce store includes a required field for entering a phone number by default. No wonder — most carriers require a customer phone contact, and delivery is not possible without it.
You can modify the phone field using custom code or, more easily, with plugins.
How to improve the phone number field and minimize errors?
This is exactly what the Toret Telefon plugin and its features are designed for — preventing input mistakes.
Phone
No more incorrectly entered phone numbers. The Telefon plugin enhances the checkout phone field, enables clear country code selection based on the customer’s country, and validates the phone number format.
After purchasing and installing the plugin, you can start improving the field. All settings are configured in the plugin administration (Toret Plugins > Telefon).
Make it easier to select the correct country code
First, the country code — customers often forget it, but it is essential for most systems (for example, carriers or payment gateways). This is especially important when your customers come from different countries. How can you set it up?
1. Enable the country code display
Activate the Show country code option.
The checkout field will now display the country code together with the corresponding flag. Customers can select the country code from a dropdown list. Country codes for all countries worldwide are available.
2. Select recommended countries based on where your customers are located
To make the selection even easier, you can display Recommended countries at the top of the dropdown list.
The selected countries will now appear at the beginning of the dropdown list.
3. Hide countries you do not ship to
If you do not ship worldwide, simply hide the country codes for irrelevant countries. This will make the selection much easier for customers. Just activate the Show only recommended countries option.
Now your customers will see only Recommended countries in the dropdown.
4. Hide manually entered country codes
If a customer does not select a country code but types it manually, it will automatically appear in the left field together with the correct flag. To avoid confusing customers with duplicate country code display, activate the Automatically remove country code option.
The manually entered country code will now be hidden in the field but will remain on the left next to the flag and will be saved correctly.
Phone number validation to prevent typos
Besides missing country codes, typos are another common issue. A missing or extra digit makes the contact unusable. Phone number validation effectively prevents such mistakes by verifying the number length and other requirements.
1. Activate validation
You can activate validation simply by checking the Phone number validation option.
With validation enabled, the field indicates whether the format is correct. If it is not correct, the order cannot be submitted.
As you can see, editing the checkout phone field takes just a few clicks. Yet these improvements significantly increase input accuracy and prevent unnecessary extra work. Have you already improved your phone field?