February 12, 2024
Digital is the way to go in 2024 (and in the future), making online credit union applications for new membership and loans even more crucial. Although some applicants prefer to drive to a physical location to fill out a paper form, most opt for a quick, seamless online process. But this process isn’t as simple as adding a form to your credit union website. To improve your CU’s form conversion rate, you must intentionally craft your forms, ensuring they promote security and are of optimal length.
When your credit union team designs your next application, consider some of our top tips and tricks to drive form conversion.
Form abandonment is a critical “problem” when driving conversion. In the financial industry, the form abandonment rate is a staggering 75.7%, making it one of the industries with the highest form abandonment rate.
When a user abandons a form, there is a 67% chance that they’ll never complete it again – and a 10% chance that they’ll choose another financial institution. When they choose another financial institution, it could be that the other FI offers something else they’re looking for. But, another factor can be that the other FI’s application process is much easier to complete. 27% of applicants will abandon a form based upon length, so fine-tuning the length and ease can help your applicants fully complete the process.
A form’s conversion rate can decrease by adding more fields. While a credit union application needs to collect a lot of information, make sure that the fields you’re requesting they complete are truly required. Are you collecting any demographic information that doesn’t need to be collected right then and there? Do you need to ask an applicant about their country and county of residence? As you add more requests for information, ask yourself if that information is pertinent to the application.
Do you ask questions repeatedly throughout the form? Requesting information more than once is unnecessary, so don’t ask twice!
Did you know that users prefer a form that extends over a few pages – versus a very long form on one page? While we’re traditionally taught to reduce the number of clicks a user needs to make, reducing scrolling is also vital for forms.
You should break down a long form into “chunks” (basic information, funding information, needed documents & ID). This will heighten the user experience and decrease your applicant’s chance of being visually overwhelmed. Remember, you are aiming for ease and simplicity.
When you spread your form to multiple pages, include a progress bar at the top of each page. This will help the user know how much of the form is completed.
You should consider mobile when designing or optimizing any portion of your user’s web experience. Overall, 45% of form data is submitted from a mobile device. Additionally, your team should monitor Google Analytics to see how much of your website traffic, including your form pages, comes from a mobile device.
To improve the mobile experience, utilize the correct input type. When you utilize certain input types for your form, users can use the autocomplete function on their smartphones.
If autofill is not an option for specific fields, one step to make the form application more efficient is to reduce how much the applicant has to type.
29% of forms are abandoned because of security concerns, and your forms will require applicants to enter sensitive, personal information. Using a trusted third-party funding application, such as Plaid, will help to increase the applicant’s trust in your form. Many users are already familiar with Plaid and will be more likely to proceed when prompted to link their funding source via Plaid (versus manually entering their information).
Other security measures to implement, even if they’re not user-facing, include a Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and end-to-end encryption (E2EE). Multi-factor authentication during the fund-linking step is another way to ensure the safety and security of sensitive information.
Most buttons merely say “complete” or “submit,” but are those words the ideal choice to move your users through the form? These vague terms may not fully explain to the user what task they’re completing – and changing the verbiage may be a test worth running. Copyhackers suggests that button copy should answer the sentence “I want to ___________.” The term you’ve used to fill in the blank can be used as the copy on your button.
One of the most significant ways to improve form conversion is to understand why applicants abandoned the form in the first place. If your applicant filled out the first two pages of your five-page form, why didn’t they proceed to page three? What happened after they hit “submit” on page two? A few questions that Zuko recommends asking to help solve this issue are:
While branding your form to match the rest of your website is excellent, you should also ensure that your form is easy to read. Choose your font type, font color, and background color wisely. You should also ensure that your form is ADA-compliant by scanning it with an ACA Compliance Checker.
When you include forms on your website, you must consider best conversion practices. This will be even easier with Sharetec’s new Online Member Services (OMS) 2.0. OMS 2.0 includes new and improved customization capabilities to help boost form conversion – with even more features and functionality in the pipeline. OMS 2.0 also boasts the Plaid integration, so funding a new account will be easier than ever! To learn more about OMS 2.0 and Plaid, contact your Sharetec Account Manager or email us at simplicity@sharetec.com.
