Misunderstanding. Thinking they’ve had financial advice. This could be 25% of your online customers.
Our recent analysis suggests 25% of consumers could either be buying financial services products online without fully understanding their decisions, or they’re thinking the website gave them financial advice of the same quality they’d receive from a financial adviser. This is based on live data for customers actually buying products online.
Customers who misunderstood the product at point of purchase were redirected to have their misunderstandings explained. Only when they confirmed they understood the product were they allowed to complete the transaction. Those that thought they had been advised were stopped altogether from buying and handled off line.
The advantages of this approach are numerous;
- Real time MI on customer understanding allows content managers to adjust content and user journeys quickly if issues are highlighted, in order to improve results.
- Problems for the future are identified today before they become the potential scandals of tomorrow.
- All customers go through the process, so business quality should improve.
- Qualitative feedback from consumers shows a high level of satisfaction with the process which engenders more trust.
Now compare this ‘point of purchase [POP]’ methodology to ‘post purchase sales verification on a sample basis’, and I bet the picture is very different. People don’t generally own up to making a wrong purchase after the event. Its counter-intuitive. Plus, there’s no incentive to say anything other than. .’Yes I am happy I understood what I bought’.
A ‘POP’ strategy involves the consumer, after having made the commitment to buy, being taken through the process to validate their specific understanding of the product, before the transaction completes.
Proof in the pudding
We are happy to share our thinking, including consumer research we commissioned on the POP methodology we have designed and implemented, which has now been successfully running for over 12 months.