Online forms and applications are crucial for the acquisition, upsell, cross-sell and retention of financial services brands. Yet, the customer experience (CX) of completing forms and applications is often overlooked.
Optimizing your forms can help you convert customers and prospects, increase revenue opportunities and improve brand perception and loyalty. So, here are 12 actionable CX tips to optimize your online forms to boost performance and drive more engagement and growth for your business.
12 CX tips for optimizing your forms
Keep forms short by conditionally showing fields. If some inputs are only required in specific situations, use conditional fields to help reduce fields and form length where possible.
Use inline form field validation and positive error messages. Try “Please Enter Your Name” instead of “You Didn’t Enter a Name” for a more positive and helpful tone.
Include smart defaults. Enable tools like auto-fill and autocorrect for a faster, easier user journey.
Arrange text boxes from easiest to most difficult. Have users fill in their names before adding more complex information, such as account numbers or multi-step actions like selecting request types.
(Source: td.com) 5. Allow applications to be fully completed online. Don’t require a phone call, in-person visit or any other additional step to complete an application. 6. Address possible concerns with summary or information boxes. Allow users to hover over an information box to quickly answer questions or concerns without leaving the page. 7. Use Recaptcha instead of Captcha technology. Have users check a box instead of deciphering an image and entering text for a quicker journey. 8. Visualize patterns and requirements. Use a clear user interface (UI) to show the strength of a password through colors (red, yellow, green), text (weak, intermediate, strong) or visually check off requirements as they type (symbol, capital letter, number). 9. Optimize form landing pages. Have a clear and specific form title and make the CTA extremely obvious on the form landing page. Place the form and key information above the fold with only the most important information on the page to avoid distraction. 10. Adjust the CTA copy to share the next step. Avoid confusion or information overload when there are multiple steps. Try “Next: Account Details” instead of just “Next.”
(Source: petalcard.com) 11. Progressively disclose each step of the application process. Use headlines and progress bars at the top of the page to let users know where they are in the application process, what they need to do at each step and what step comes next 12. Allow users to tab between sections of the form. Give users the ability to go back and edit or review options, reducing their chance of abandoning the form completely.
Find out how Natwest increased online agreement in principle (AIP) applications using digital experience analytics.
Optimize your online forms with digital analytics
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