Jan 18, 2019
Improving the financial services online experience – your consumers want fewer clicks and ease of navigation
Improving the financial services online experience – your consumers want fewer clicks and ease of navigation
So many financial services operators often underestimate the role that web design plays in their business’s success. But, the truth is, without an intelligently designed online presence, your company won’t be able to compete against the growing number of financial services providers using the internet to boost their growth. You may believe you’re offering your customers everything they could want – and more! So why are they still using your competitors?
The answer may well lie in the customer journey you offer your clients. If it’s not up to scratch, your clients could be turning to your competitors because they provide a better service. There are three critical factors you need to consider when it comes to your online site to make the most of the benefits of online financial services:
1. Speed
2. Ease of use
3. Robustness
Before we get into them, let’s straighten out the basics.
What is a customer journey
The customer journey is like a roadmap. It details the complete route your customers take from brand discovery to interaction and beyond. It sounds like a lot to cover, but what you should be interested in is what makes an excellent customer journey, and that is relatively simple: anything your customer needs should be no more than three clicks away. That is all you have to do to make sure your customer is pleased with their service, have all the information they need, and can decide what steps to take next with zero hassle.
Improving the customer journey
If you want to improve the customer journey, you’ve got to know what it looks like before you can find and fix the problems. To do this, you’ll need to map your customer journey by creating a visual representation of every experience your customers have with you. Beware: at first glance, the customer journey looks simple, but delve a little deeper, and you’ll see customer journeys can vary greatly and can be complicated.
There are different starting points, like marketing referrals, search engines, social media, customer service enquiries, or recommendations. Where they go from there may be just as complex so, unless you’ve got a lot of time on your hands, it may be worth calling in the professionals to take on this task for you.
Once you have mapped out your customer journey, it’s time to look at improvements. When it comes to your online customer journey, three common areas can make or break the customer experience. You need to make sure your website and customer journey are built with these in mind. So, what are they?
The big three
1. Speed – 75% of users will leave your site if page loading times pass the three-second mark. The faster they load, the higher the conversion. People looking for information on the internet are ones who don’t have time to go into a branch or call and find out the same information. They are looking for speed and convenience, and your website needs to offer it. The faster a customer can reach their desired information, the more likely they are to do business with you and not your speedy competitor.
2. Ease of use – Make it easy for your customers to find information. Clicking endlessly to finally arrive at a property or information they need isn’t going to make a great impression. We go online because we want things now. Anything more than three clicks to get what we need and the process has already become tedious. There is no faster way to lose business than to make the process hard for your customers. You need a sophisticated website and a simple navigation process.
3. Robustness – Your website needs to be error free. It needs to be able to withstand a high volume of visitors at one time, just in case there is a spike in traffic, and it shouldn’t contain any broken links. These can shed doubt on the legitimacy of your business and can send customers running.
A professional web design service can help you map out and ensure your customer journey is as streamlined as can be. They’ll be able to test your site, making sure there are no errors, speed it up, and make it look fantastic.
Interested? Why not get in touch with Finance Stream today on 0161 672 7824 to invest in a flawless online customer journey.
If you need guidance or support with your financial services design and messaging please contact our branding team or email dave@financestream.co
