Everyone says that the fewer screens you have in a form, the higher the conversion rate. But sometimes an “unnecessary” screen can save a business rather than hurt it.
Around eight years ago, when I was launching a lending product in India for the first time, we ran into a rather unexpected problem: the verification team was drowning in selfie checks.
Applicants did not understand what kind of photo was required and failed verification three, five, or even more times.
There were short instructions explaining how to take the photo. But people either did not read them or did not interpret them correctly.
Meanwhile, the verification team was sorting through photos of people wearing sunglasses or hats, shirtless applicants, poorly lit faces, cropped images, and all sorts of other submissions. At one point, the backlog reached 12,000 applications with a “pending” status.
The solution was very simple, and surprisingly effective.
We added one more screen explaining, with both text and visual examples, what an acceptable selfie should look like. Users could not continue until they clicked the “I have read and understood” button.
We also introduced more specific SMS templates for rejected photos, such as: “Please retake the photo without wearing a hat.”
Yes, the additional step slightly reduced the completion rate at that point in the funnel. But it allowed us to clear the entire backlog, while the quality of new submissions improved enough to increase processing speed several times over.
Today, selfie verification is largely automated rather than handled manually.
But the ability to look beyond standard conversion advice and find a solution that fits the local context is still essential when launching a lending product in a new market.