Bank Technology News  |  November 2008

By Glen Fest

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Credit may be hard to come by these days, but nothing ventured, nothing gained. In a bit of good news for the industry, E-LOAN has found that it pays to follow up on abandoned online loan applications. Its proactive outreach to consumers who left behind an unattended cart or incomplete form resulted in as much as a 28 percent increase in completed loan applications, according to a new report from Forrester Research.

E-LOAN partnered with technology firm Responsys to build an e-mail campaign reaching out to the lurkers who bailed on an application, sending them two follow-up emails—including one within 30 minutes of the initial activity. The e-mails include a link for a consumer to finish up an application where they had left off, or a phone number to put them in with a contact center agent. The first contact results in a 28 percent lift in completion rates; the second follow-up email has a 25 percent improvement. About five percent of abandoners end up completing the app over the phone.

“Comparatively speaking, too much time is spent getting leads into the funnel and too little time is spent maximizing the conversion of leads already in the funnel,” says principal analyst Brad Strothkamp.

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