Best way to get clients to complete a 20 page online form.

[TheMaverick]

Hi,


I act as an agent for my clients and from time to time I am required to register them with a government department which requires completion of a 20 page form of personal information.


I have set up the form on my website but recently received a few complaints from my clients about the length of time the form takes to complete and how boring it is!
Does anyone have any ideas how I could make this process more user friendly or dare I say exciting?!?


I unfortunately can’t cut down the length of the form or skip any information.


Your help is greatly appreciated.

 

[Mail Workshop]

Get them to complete a small form first with no more than 4 fields, then once you have their contact details give them a call or email and fill out a full profile in your CRM or database.

 

[LowPrices.uk]

I would say break the form down in to numbered sections, and allow them to save the input at any point (a bit like they do on the Inland Revenue site), so they can take a break and come back to it. Once it's broken down, they will naturally get a sense of completion once they complete every section.

Making it fun or bearable is a hard ask, but you could add something like a nice photo with a motivational or progress message I suppose. So, after they complete each section, they get a progress message.

Coding a form properly is a lot of hard work BTW.

The science of conversion rate optimisation and user testing may also help you, see:

http://www.webref.eu/conversion-rate-optimisation.php

Rgds

 

[Page]

Not only save the input at any point but skip questions and come back later

Showing the amount left to complete is important

 

[antropy]

Sometimes little things like ... "We know filling this in is a bit of a drag but the government requires all this info. We've tried to make it as painless as possible" helps morale!