When our team started this project, Auto Navigator was a new online product for Capital One and the idea of vetting your financing for a car online prior to purchasing a car was a relatively new concept. The term “pre-qualification” was not widely understood and the process of pre-qualifying prior to going to a car dealership was creating problematic expectations.
My role and the team
My role in this project was as researcher, interaction designer and design strategist.
I would closely with a visual designer who built the final designs that went live.
I stay closely aligned with product, engineering and our credit team throughout the process.
The problem to solve
The tradition auto financing process was all in person. The customer would go to a dealership, they would find a car they liked, they would fill out an application, get approved for a loan and get the car. Customers were very familiar with this process.
The Auto Navigator auto financing process was a hybrid experience of online and in person. The customer would pre-qualify online to determine if they would get approved for a loan, what interest rate they could expect to get and how much they would be able to finance total. Once they pre-qualified, they would be able to search inventory from dealerships in their area and get a better idea of the out the door price prior to going to the dealership.
Once the customer went to the dealership and was ready to finalize the purchase, they would need to fill out a financing application at the dealership to secure a loan and get the car.
The intent of Auto Navigator as a product was to help the customer better understand their financing, have the confidence that they would get approved and have an expectation of the interest rate and what they could afford prior to going to the dealership. However, because the concept of a pre-qualification was not clear to the customer, the idea that applying online would not impact their credit was not believable in it’s current iteration. Customers were confused and upset when they got to the dealership thinking they had secured financing online only to discover that they would be required to fill out a credit application at the dealership.
Discovery: Understanding the in’s and out’s of the pre-qualification process
I took steps to better understand how we decisioned customers to inform updates we could make to the pre-qualification application and the process. I led interviews with stakeholders from the credit team, operations, and fraud to understand how the information requested was used within the current application and all the possible outcomes in regard to decisioning. I created a workflow of the process to help broaden the understanding with the cross functional team.
I was able to determine the minimum amount of information needed to pre-qualify a customer based on this discovery work, which would decrease the information collected from customers substantially.
Define: Co-creation with customers
I conducted rapid prototyping research with customers to better understand their thinking and behavioral patterns. I led ideation to simplify the pre-qualification application experience to give the customer what they need quickly and enable them take the next step.
From this research, we made some key insights:
- Make it very clear that the application will be no impact to their credit.
- Make the application more conversational. Customer’s expect to receive a loan when they fill out an application. If they won’t get a loan, the process needs to feel less serious.
- Customers are using Auto Navigator to seek certain information. Create an experience based on what we know about our customers that will provide that information in a simple and straight forward manner.
- Make it easy and make it feel like a tailored, personalized experience. If the customer is an existing Capital One customer, don’t treat them like a stranger. Leverage the information you have about them to auto fill the application.
Build
Leveraging the research insights, we built and launched a new application experience. We made the process clear and concise to set expectations for the customer from the start. We made it very clear that pre-qualifying would be no impact to your credit and that there was no obligation. We made the process much easier for Capital One customers by allowing them to sign in and leverage their existing information.
Results
- Conversion increased by 18%
- Time to complete the application decreased from 6 minutes to 3 minutes
- Form fields required to complete the application decreased from 24 to 12 (for new customers)
- NPS score gauging customer satisfaction with the product increased from 74 to 82