Over 80% of people who start filling out a form don’t complete it. So, how do you differentiate your form and get people to complete it?

Abandoned forms mean a percentage of your leads are not converting, so you are losing money with every incomplete form. Here is how to make sure your forms get completed and you achieve your business goals:

Why People Abandon Forms (Understanding the Problem)

People abandon forms for different reasons, and knowing exactly why people abandon your form helps you improve your form design and tailor it to fit your target audience preference. So, let’s look at the common reasons why people abandon forms:

• Too Long or Overwhelming: The longer your form, the more likely you are to overwhelm your respondents. Most users feel daunted by lengthy forms, causing them to abandon the form mid-way.
• Unclear Questions: You only have a few seconds to impress the people filling out your form, so if your questions are poorly worded, people get frustrated and drop off. 
• Poor Mobile Experience: Most people fill out forms on their smartphones, so if your form is not mobile-friendly, they will get frustrated with the negative experience, and abandon the form. Other factors like slow loading times can also cause prospects to lose interest and close the page.
• Lack of Trust (Security Concerns, Personal Data Requests): Asking users intrusive questions makes users suspicious of you. Requesting excessive personal information or lacking clear security indicators can make users hesitant to complete the form.
• No Clear Motivation or Benefit for Completing It: People are more inclined to complete a form if they know they will get something in return. So, if there is no clear benefit or incentive, they may see no reason to complete the form.

Who Needs to Improve Their Online Form Completion Rate

1. Small Business Owners

• Solution: Hannah’s form is too long, asks for too much personal information, and is not mobile-friendly. This is why her customers are not completing his form. She needs to create a mobile-friendly form that doesn’t ask more than 3-5 important questions.

2. Events Coordinators and Managers

• Solution: Evans forms are too long and not mobile-friendly. He needs to create a form that engages users with interactive elements like progress indicators, logic, etc. His form should also easily integrate with event management software to follow up with people who registered for the event.

3. Educators and Researchers

Solution: David’s forms are overly academic with no clear instructions and participants struggle to understand them. His forms are also very plain and not optimized for mobile. He needs to create a simple but visually engaging form using fields like logic, an intro page with instructions, as well as images and help text to guide users.

The Core Principles of an Engaging Online Form

The key to getting people to complete your form is to make sure they don’t feel like doing a chore. You need to create an experience not just a form and here is how to do it:

1. Keep it Short and Focused—Only Ask for Necessary Information: Users are more likely to complete short and simple forms. Prioritize essential fields and avoid asking for extraneous information that isn’t directly relevant to the form’s purpose.
2. Use Clear and Simple Language: The golden rule of thumb is to only ask questions that anybody would understand. Break down your questions into the simplest terms so users understand your questions and accurately provide the required information.
3. Make It Visually Appealing: Use spacing, text, and interactive elements users find engaging. Start by using enough white space so your form design feels clean and uncluttered. You should also choose colors and fonts that are easy to read and align with your brand’s aesthetic.
4. Ensure Mobile-Friendliness: Most people access online forms on their smartphones so your form design must be responsive and adapt to different screen sizes.
5. Build Trust:  Explain why you are collecting the data and how you want to use it. Users are more likely to complete forms if they trust the organization collecting their data.

Step-by-Step Guide: Designing a Form for Maximum Completion Rate

To create an online form that effectively captures user information and achieves high completion rates, follow these steps:

Step 1: Define the Goal of Your Form: What do you want to achieve with this form? Do you want to generate leads, customer feedback, event registration, or something else? This will ensure that every question will directly contribute to achieving the form’s purpose.

Step 2: Ask the Right Questions: Prioritize essential fields by asking only important questions and if you must ask slightly optional questions, use logic so respondents only see questions that are relevant to them. You can also use auto-fill so respondents don’t have to manually fill out all the form fields, saving time and reducing their stress.

Step 3: Optimize Form Layout & Flow: Use logical question sequencing to present your questions in a logical order that makes sense to people filling out your form. You can also add progress bars and help text to show users their progress and reduce anxiety.

Step 4: Enhance User Experience (UX) and Accessibility: Ensure your form is responsive across all devices, especially mobile. You also intuitively guide respondents by using obvious buttons and dropdown menus to guide them to take your desired action. 

Step 5: Boost Completion with Smart Incentives & CTAs: Offering incentives like discounts, free resources, or giveaways motivate users to complete the form. Use motivating phrases like “Get Your Free Guide” or “Claim Your Discount” as your CTA.

Common Mistakes to Avoid When Designing a Form for Maximum Completion Rate

Here are some common pitfalls to avoid so your forms convert:

1. Too Many Required Fields: Most people are hesitant to share excessive personal details, especially if they don’t see a clear benefit, stick to essentials like name and contact details. Don’t ask for sensitive information like a street address or house number unless it’s absolutely necessary. 
2. Poor Error Handling (Unclear Validation Messages): another major reason why people abandon forms is unclear error messages. For example, in an application form, you ask applicants to write out their desired salary using numbers only. If an applicant writes their desired salary with a special character like a currency symbol, the error should be “enter only numbers,” so the respondents can easily identify the error and correct it.
3. No Confirmation or Thank-You Message After Submission: Always thank respondents for completing the task. A simple thank you message post submission shows you appreciate the effort they put into filling out the form and reduces any panic or uncertainty around their submission. You can also add the next steps such as “we will reach out to you within 24-48 hours” in your confirmation message so people know what to expect from your organization and build a positive brand perception.

How Formplus Can Help

From collecting user feedback to surveys to shipping orders or even lead generation, Formplus helps you create beautiful and engaging forms that people actually want to complete. Here is how it works:

• Engaging Forms: Craft engaging forms using different question types, color themes, and layout design. 
• Conditional Logic: Instead of making all respondents go through the same process, you can tailor their experiences based on their preferences. For example, if a respondent selects inquiry in your customer feedback form, they will not see the same question as another person who selects “complaint” in their feedback category.
• Payment Integrations: Formplus also enables you to maximize your reach and convert them immediately with different payment options. For example, if you run a pastry shop, adding a payment option to your order form ensures that customers can make all their requests at once and no room for hesitation would make them abandon the form.
• Data Export & Integrations: You can also seamlessly export your lead data to your CRM or marketing automation platform for nurturing and conversion.

Take Action

You have to put in a lot of work to create forms with a high completion rate, from the look and feel to the question structure. There are also so many pitfalls to look out for when creating your form because one mistake is enough to discourage people from filling out your form.

We hope this guide helps you build engaging forms that help you achieve your conversion goals.

Try our SaaS form builder for easy, high-converting forms.