Lending Tree
The nation’s leading online financial marketplace for consumers and small businesses.
- Product Strategy
- Marketing Strategy
- UX Design
- Web Design
- Optimization
Launching and Optimizing a Better Business Lending Marketplace
The Challenge
After the acquisition of a business lending startup, LendingTree reached out to CSTMR for additional product and UX expertise for their Business Loans vertical. Their existing business loan marketplace needed to be merged gracefully with the newly acquired lending product platform to create an intuitive and optimized user experience. At the same time, LendingTree needed help updating and optimizing the existing business loans user experience for continued growth.
Goals:
- Design and optimize the merger of two lending platforms.
- Improve the user experience of the existing financing flow.
- Examine the existing flow and audience to identify opportunities.
- Continually refine and improve the vertical over time.
The Solution
CSTMR and LendingTree began by working collaboratively to define the parameters of the product updates, understand their existing product and the business drivers, and define their small business audience through in-depth personas.
CSTMR applied UX best practices as well as data insights provided by LendingTree to design updated form flow and marketplace results screens. We tested our design and UX ideas at various points int he process to gather valuable feedback around comprehension, ease of use, and clarify of next steps.
CSTMR has continued to work with the LendingTree business loans team for over four years, meeting on a weekly basis to continually review new findings, assess opportunities, and enhance product design.
"I've worked with several different agencies and CSTMR is by far my favorite. The team not only possesses great industry knowledge and insights, but also take the time to carefully listen and fully understand our business needs and goals in order to deliver quality solutions and recommendations time and time again – across web and UX design, branding, and marketing and product strategy. They are forward thinking and take a very customer centric approach which has helped us scale and optimize our digital properties across multiple channels. I would give CSTMR my highest recommendation to other companies seeking to grow their brands in the digital space."
Tactics
- Combined data analysis and UX best practices to design successful UX solutions.
- Interface testing to gather feedback and learnings prior to development.
- Define and map out audience personas to better understand users and identify opportunities.
- Conducted market research to help define small business lifecycle stages for the audience.
- Regularly brainstormed and defined new product engagement ideas to meet company goals.
Results
Merging & Growing a More Robust Business Lending Platform
- Successfully merged the user experience of two different business lending platforms to help improve capabilities, quality, and outcomes.
- Enhanced the user experience for small business owners searching for a funding source, thereby improving the productivity of the marketplace.
- Provided a more informed, thoughtful foundation upon which to guide the product evolution.
- Continue to provide valuable product strategy, marketing strategy, and UX design services to optimize the business loan vertical.
