Greetings fellow forums members, I have most all of the CC applications, but, I do not have the forms one. I must confess that when I encounter forms on the net that I just really hate forms. Decided that I did not want my customers or potential customers to have to fill out a form in order for them to be able to email me. I think that that would drastically reduce the # of email inquiries that I receive. I have had the site up on CC provided S-drive for several years and I do get a modest amount of email inquiries from traffic on my site.
My question is: Does using contact forms help or improve SEO in any way or would it give me equivalent of having my email address available to the customers on the site? Would using contact form improve my SEO?

If you hate forms Greg, you are then forcing people to install an email client so that they can reach you. If you are simply adding mailto: links, those only work for people that have an email client installed (which I personally never have). They would then be required to copy your email address, go to their email service, paste in the email address and then compose a message. I can say that personally when I encounter something like that, I never take the time. I just go on to find something else. It should be little to no effort to reach someone especially if there is some financial part in the process.

Contact forms are designed to make things easier for your customers to reach you. Just enter the information you want to collect and click submit and you are done. Contact forms are better for SEO, and your email address will no longer be exposed, which will reduce spam.

So for me, I use forms as much as possible.

I think that there are a lot of people out there like me that also do not like forms. Personally I like the copy and paste method of getting and using an email address. You cannot put attachments on forms at least I have not encountered one that you could. People can in 2 seconds utilize my email address and send it to me directly and attach photos. Then when I reply it does not go to their spam file because they have already emailed me. When I email them first and not a reply with the attached bid proposal for their job it usually goes to their spam folder when I am initiating the email correspondence. That is another reason why I do not like using the forms.
You get their email address when they email you. I guess that I could make a form with instructions on it asking the customer to copy and paste my email address into their send email line and to send me their address and zip code if they wish for me to come out and give them a free estimate. And that they could attach some pics of the things they are talking about if they think that that would be helpful.

Have you ever opened Form Builder Greg? Adding attachments to a form has been with that software since day 1.

If you think the process you outlined above works for you and your customers, go for it. I can just say that if I ever came to a website that told me I had to follow that process to reach you, I never would do it and you would have lost a potential sale. Having a contact form is one of the MOST basic things every website should have. You might have a personal animosity to forms, but if you want a honest opinion, you need to get over that! It is 2015 Greg, not 2002.

How would one go about doing all that copying/pasting on a phone?

If I send in a form, I get confirmation that it was received, with email... not so sure.

Also, forms cut down on having to write long, detailed messages (much better for phones and small devices); customers could just check off the things that apply to them, like whether they need interior or exterior painting, and other choices – such as when would be a good time to schedule that free estimate and if they prefer to be contacted by phone or email.

Ease of use and convenience for your potential customers should outweigh your personal preferences.

Greg,
Your site needs to be liked by your users not you. I do things on one of my sites to accommodate people that don't know what their doing. I don't like it but it's about the user not me.