Everyone Wins with a Customer-Centric Digital Lending Platform
When it comes to increasing your borrowers (and growing loan profits), tactics like slashing costs and offering discounted rates will only get you so far. Real opportunities come when you start to leverage the right digital lending platform.
Too often, for example, when banks and credit unions implement loan origination software solutions, they prioritize their staff’s wants over the needs of those actually filling out the online loan applications. But, the best-designed digital lending platform delivers a no-nonsense experience that helps financial institutions and their customers.
Read on to learn how to create a more user-centric borrower experience with a modern digital lending platform.
A Good User Experience Leads to a Good ROI
When you create an online experience that puts your customers’ needs first, this is known as user experience or UX. The UX of your digital lending platform can make or break your reputation—and success—in the market.
How often do you enjoy filling out an online form? For a lot of us, it’s a task we put off because most online forms are tedious and poorly designed. That’s one reason why the most effective online loan applications are not burdensome, overly time-consuming, or overwhelming. They’re only as complicated as they need to be.
Simplify Interactions with Your Digital Lending Platform
Famed architect Mies van der Rohe is almost as famous for his “less-is-more” dictum as he is for his modernist architectural masterpieces. When it comes to UX best practices for developing online forms, his philosophy serves as an invaluable guidepost for optimization.
Just as you take steps to please your customers through other interactions, you should also make a point to ensure your online lending workflows are as painless as possible too. You’ve got to create an optimal user experience if you want happy customers. That starts with your digital lending platform.
Here are a few ways to optimize your digital lending platform for a great user experience:
Remove any “optional” or marketing-focused fields. Don’t make your loan applicants spend extra time answering distracting, ancillary questions. Instead, collect only the bits of crucial information your financial institution requires to process an application.
By eschewing any inconsequential questions from your online loan application, you will:
- Reduce how many forms get abandoned before completion
- Show your customers you respect their time because you’ve made it easier for them to complete the application
- Get more value from your digital lending platform
Learn other ways you can improve UX with content strategy
Make Loan Applications Faster and Easier
Rethink how you collect information. When it comes to crafting an ideal user experience, seconds add up.
Once you’ve gotten your form down to only the must-include questions, review your online loan application and look for ways you can reduce the number of clicks it takes for an applicant to respond to each question, and then make appropriate updates to your form (as long as these changes don’t compromise clarity).
For example, it’s quicker for users to choose an option from a trio of radio buttons (one click) than it is for them to open a drop-down menu and make a selection (two clicks). Customize your digital lending platform with the most user-friendly options.
Use auto-fill whenever possible. You can increase your loan decision workflow efficiency by setting up your digital lending platform to gather additional information about your customers (from other sources, like public and governmental databases) in the background once they’ve identified themselves.
It’s easier (and faster) for loan applicants to verify the accuracy of auto-filled information than it is for them to take the time to enter these sorts of details themselves.
Solve Real Problems for Real Customers
The details matter.
In today’s competitive online lending environment, to truly succeed, your financial institution must invest in implementing user experience best practices, like choosing the proper wording, fine-tuning your design, and creating a seamless workflow in your digital lending platform.
When banks and credit unions take a “customer-first” approach and customize their digital lending platform around the needs and problems of their loan applicants, it’s a true competitive advantage that will pay off in the long run.
Simply integrating an out-of-the-box loan digital lending platform isn’t efficient and won’t convert as well as an uncluttered, tailor-made digital lending technology.
Baker Hill’s revamped online loan origination solution is here to help you make the lending process easier, faster, and more transparent for loan applicants. With our easy-to-configure, uncluttered online solution, you’ll be more competitive, stay compliant, and mitigate risks involved with making credit decisions.
Want to see how our digital lending platform can transform your online lending process?
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This is a guest blog post by TBH Creative, an Indianapolis website design company and digital marketing agency. Since 2004, TBH Creative has helped hundreds of companies across a wide range of industries leverage the power of the Internet with results-driven websites and comprehensive marketing solutions.
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Posted on Thursday, December 6, 2018 at 1:30 PM
by
Baker Hill
Author Bio
Baker Hill empowers progressive financial institutions to increase revenue, reduce risk, and drive more profitable relationships.
Streamline business, consumer direct and indirect lending with our common origination platform. Understand profitability and risk at every level with our sophisticated business intelligence and analytics. Monitor and maintain a healthy financial portfolio with our statement analysis, exception, and risk management solutions.
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