How to Enhance Your Web Forms With Real-Time Data

As an online marketer you collect as much information as your website visitors are willing to give you via online forms. But what happens if your visitors wont provide what you are asking for, or worse, they provide inaccurate information? How does that affect your interactions with them?

People will share information via web forms, but the more you ask for, the less likely they are to fill it out. Unfortunately people intentionally or inadvertently provide inaccurate information.

Organizations experience data errors when information is manually entered, at a rate of 2% and 8%. In one example, news was made when 17,000 men appeared to be pregnant. Due to incorrectly entered medical codes at British hospitals, thousands of men apparently required obstetric and prenatal exams. These seemingly simple errors caused disastrous results in billing, claims, and regulatory compliance. Even one wrong number entered incorrectly can cause a payment to fail, a wrong part number to be shipped, or apparently a man to become pregnant.

According to research by Experian, human error is reported to be the biggest cause for data inaccuracy.

So, how can you overcome this situation and correct errors or obtain additional information? The answer lies in real-time data validation web services. Take a look at the following three scenarios to better understand how these services can provide real value at the point of data entry.

Scenario 1 Typos

Maria is an avid shoe shopper and is visiting a major retail site that carries many of her favorite designers. She fills out a special offers web form and provides her name, email address, and city/state. While filling out the form Maria is distracted and does not type her email address correctly.

Fortunately, the retailer uses real-time web services to confirm the data provided during every online transaction. Using the full name and city/state that Maria provided, they can correct the email address in real-time before it is added to the retailers customer database.

Scenario 2 Not Enough Information

Jonathan is shopping for life insurance online. The insurer whose site he is visiting has found that visitors do not want to provide more than 3 pieces of information on their web form. Form abandonment increases substantially when a 4th question is required. 

The insurance company has a screening model that predicts with great accuracy the best insurance product and offer to deliver to a prospect if they know age, family status, and occupation. However, Jonathan completes the fields on the web form which are simply name, phone, and email. Using these three fields, the important data fields are appended from a national consumer database.

The email response that Jonathan receives within seconds of completing the form contains information on the insurance product that is best for him, and an attractive offer that encourages him to call or request more information.

Scenario 3 Call Center Routing

Inbound call centers can receive thousands of calls each day, many initiated from a prospect visiting your website. Real-time services can save time for agents by pre-populating fields so that they do not have to key in information to fulfill inquiries or sales requests. By doing a reverse match on the telephone number, the name and address would automatically pre-populate before the agent answers the call. Not only does this save time, but data entry errors are eliminated as well. In addition, call wait times decrease because agents spend less time on the phone filling in information that is readily available via the real-time services link.

Real-time data services will help facilitate a better experience on your website and an overall positive view of your organization. Not to mention saving you valuable marketing dollars by not entering erroneous data into your database. Your database will be populated with accurate and verified information as well as key demographics and profile information. Future communications with your leads and customers will be delivered, and they will be more effective in helping you drive more business.