• by Tanya Gazdik , March 2, 2011

Having online calculators or a few content articles about the home-buying process is no longer a viable strategy for mortgage lender Web sites. Bank of America, Chase and PNC have raised the bar with new tools, positioning those lenders as a "trusted partner" throughout the process, according to a report from Change Sciences Group.

The New York-based research company evaluated 12 sites for the 75-page report: "The Consumer Experience of Mortgage Lender Web Sites 2011." Other sites evaluated were BB&T, Capital One, CitiMortgage, ERA Mortgage, GMAC Mortgage, MetLife Home Loans, Quicken Loans, SunTrust Mortgage and Wells Fargo.

With consumer trust of lenders at an all-time low, the time is right for a renewed focus on lender Web sites. Today, most home buyers or refinancers will spend significant time online doing their homework before accepting a lender's offer. Mortgage sites that fail to heed user goals will increasingly alienate prospects and lose market share, says Change Sciences Partner Steve Ellis.

"What we are seeing with the top-performing mortgage sites is a new attention to helping the user learn while doing," Ellis tells Marketing Daily. "Consumers are coming to mortgage sites to see what a lender has to offer. But behind this need lurks a whole range of questions about the mortgage process."

For example, consumers want to know how their credit score affects their application or what kind of income-to-debt ratio a lender is looking to see. "To really perform well, a mortgage site needs to address these questions while letting the user get to his primary goal: Getting a reasonable sense of what the lender has to offer," Ellis says.

Bank of America "significantly" outperforms all of the sites reviewed in its support for learning while doing. "PNC is another site attempting the same idea," Ellis says. "On the other hand, Chase and Wells take a more conservative approach, and get their relatively high marks because of solid conservative execution. While it is somewhat riskier and certainly not without problems, we think the B of A and PNC approach represents the future of financial services sites."

The report focuses on three critical aspects of the site: The first impression the site provides, how the site supports helping the prospect find a loan that works for him, and how the site supports getting the prospect started with the lending process, including getting in touch with a mortgage representative or applying online.

There is currently a great deal of variation in the way these goals are supported by lenders. Twenty-five percent of sites have major navigation design problems, while 75% of sites fail to provide information about preapproval. Forty-two percent of sites fail to provide messaging that is intended to bolster the trust level in a prospect, and 60% of sites fail to account for how credit might affect the loan. Finally, 40% of sites fail to provide a way to get to details about the loan offer, and 40% of sites fail to provide information that will help the prospect learn how much home she can afford.