4 ways to reduce financial application abandonment
According to Formisimo, filling out an application form takes around 147 seconds on average, and this can even reach a whopping 251 seconds. Not only this, but users are also required to plough through approximately 33 fields. Not the ideal way to keep users’ attention.
So, what can finance businesses do to improve their application forms and ensure that less people abandon? Here are our top tips for improving conversions on your site.
Research by Quicksprout.com found that by reducing form fields, businesses can see a positive improvement in conversions for fintech. The study showed that a form with 3 fields has a 10% greater chance of converting than one with twice as many fields. Think about the information that you really need and keep form fields to a minimum to keep users happy.
Implementing an effective type-ahead address validation helps keep users engaged with address form fields. It also ensures that only accurate address data is entered. Our own research showed that almost 80% of users prefer type-ahead address validation compared to alternative methods, as it reduces the number of keystrokes necessary, auto-completing entire addresses in just one click. Users love it, we love, you’ll love it.
Users are ordinary people – not rocket scientists or brain surgeons. This is really worth bearing in mind when considering your forms. According to SaleCycle, abandonment is higher in the finance sector than most due to the fact that financial application forms can be so long and confusing. Think about why users are coming to your site. Because your company is great at what it does, right? OK, so cut the jargon and stick to plain English that your users will understand and appreciate.
A great way to manage users’ expectations about how long a form is, is to include progress indicators. This allows customers to see which stage of the form they are at, to prepare themselves for the next step and to see how much further they have to go until completion.
Making your forms shorter, easier to complete and human will help you keep users focused, keep them understanding, and keep your conversions rising.