Broking widgets push 10% increase in Quickli membership upgrades, as first stage ships.
New product offering exploring novel business venture into lead generation and nurturing tools.
*Solo designer
*Feb 2023 - (ongoing)
Context
Industry defining mortgage broking software looking to diversify their revenue streams as they approach market saturation.
Quickli is a loan servicing calculator solution targeted at mortgage brokers. It has won three awards including The Australian Mortgage Award for contribution to the mortgage broking industry, due to its incredible time saving potential.
“… with Quickli, what used to take me 8 hours I can do in 30 minutes”.
Mark, Home Loan Specialists
With 50% of Australia’s ~20 thousand mortgage brokers captured at an 80% retention rate, Quickli was looking to expand into other areas before it reached market saturation.
The product team was tasked with identifying other potential revenue streams that support mortgage brokers - without becoming an aggregator.
The mortgage broker’s loan process
Problem
Mortgage brokers’ primary lead generation is driven by simple financial calculators.
On mortgage broking or home loan websites, you will almost always find a section devoted to financial calculators called widgets. Their purpose is to allow curious customers to answer such questions as, “how much can I afford to borrow?", and, “Can I save money if I refinance?”.
A widget’s goal is to provide enough help to consumers in order to build trust and convert them to leads. These potential leads are then connected with a mortgage broker to begin the loan process. According to 60+ brokers, widgets represent 80% of new leads. Therefore widgets represent the primary source of income for mortgage brokers.
“If I earn 000’s from lead gen, I would be willing to pay 00’s for the lead gen tools.”
- broker
Process
Disrupting and dominating the primary lead generation space.
We framed our mission around four key questions: How can we capture the lead generation space? What can Quickli do differently to market leaders? How can we continue to support brokers? What upsell opportunities exist?
I worked in 6 week cycles with the Product team and CEO to conduct market research, brainstorm ideas, and prototype solutions. I worked closely with engineering to understand technical feasibility, build, and deliver the first milestone.
Variations for the consumer facing Home Loan Repayment widget.
Solution
A single pipeline to streamline a broker’s process.
After 12 weeks of rigorous testing and refinement, we delivered the first stage of our multi-step plan to capture lead generation. We roadmapped this plan into three milestones.
The vision was a comprehensive suite of widgets, first for a broker’s everyday use to tackle initial lead calls. Then the ability to send widgets to clients to reduce time spent by brokers on lead qualification. Finally, Quickli’s entrance into the consumer market.
Milestone one
Upsell opportunity and POC - “Quick Calcs”.
First we wanted to build trust with brokers. By building five of the most important widgets for lead qualification (step two of a broker’s process) we could lay the foundations for milestone two, as well as gauge interest in the product by measuring the increase in account upgrades post release.
I worked with the PM to analyse the vast array of different calculators on the market. We created an information hierarchy for each of our widgets, which we turned into user flows, and finally wireframes.
We tested with brokers, collected their feedback, and iteratively refined the calculators to achieve milestone 1.
Refinance feasibility widget
Budget planner widget
Loan repayment widget
Income annualisation widget
Milestone two
Lead nurturing - “Embeddable widgets”
Status: Under construction
Embeddable widgets are targeted toward our broker’s clients. This meant we needed to introduce a higher quality visual element; simplify information and copy; and create a more consumer facing experience.
Coupling with branding to reinforce upsell, we enable brokers to embed Quick Calcs into emails. This helps build trust with consumers who are empowered during the loan process. This represents an important part of lead nurturing.
Brokers benefit because of reduced manual labour - we link client information directly into their Quickli account, and clients benefit because they feel more connected and in control of the broking process.
Borrowing power mobile widget - MVP for user testing
Buying power mobile widget - MVP for user testing
Refi feasibility mobile widget - MVP for user testing
Stamp duty mobile widget - MVP for user testing
Loan repayment mobile widget - MVP for user testing
Milestone three
Lead generation - “Consumer widgets”
Status: Design stage.
This consumer focused widget collection serve to build trust with consumers through more detailed widgets that also provide behind the scenes information and education.
This trust is hypothesised to create a strong connection to consumers, building a pool of leads that Quickli can sell to brokers. Because these leads have already been qualified by Quickli, and their information is stored in our database we save broker’s even more time, allowing them to focus on other areas of their business.
Lead generation flow
Milestone one was delivered to resounding success:
Strong customer testimonials:
“Im stoked. Being able to funnel leads directly into Quickli is unreal.”
- John, Mortgage Choice“I love the refinance feasibility one, being able to quickly check over the phone with a client is amazing.”
- Emily, Simply Finance“This is exactly what we need, especially with our own branding.”
- Mark, Lendi
300 Quick Calc users within first week
10% increase in upgraded memberships post Quick Calcs. release.
Impact
Milestone two: Embeddable widgets are currently being built,
Milestone three: Consumer widgets are currently in design stage.