How address autocomplete grows your business

You've got more website traffic than ever, but your conversion rate and sales are plummeting. What's worse is that this is the information you've got to deliver to the executive team for the monthly report. They're going to want to know the reasons why and the proposed solutions.

Of course, you'll make it your top priority to figure out what's going on. You decide to map out the flow of the user's journey on your website. You identify key points where there could be problems for the customer.

In your investigation, you discover the tool you use to enter their address frequently tells them, "The address is Invalid." However, when you call the customers, they tell you the address is correct. What's worse is your support team confirms this issue has been happening for a while.

The good news is you can fix the problem. The bad news is the address tool you've been using has prevented customers from purchasing, sent wrong addresses to your card processor for an increase in declined payments, and cluttered your database with inaccurate information.

It would be wonderful to tell you this story was a nightmare, but it happened to someone on Smarty's marketing team. If they'd only known about Smarty's Address Autocomplete, it would've saved a lot of heartache and frustration.

Download Our Magical Benefits Of Address Autocomplete ebook

What is address autocomplete?

Almost everyone has experience address autocomplete. The beautiful feature found in checkouts, forms, and other locations predicts a user's address in just a few keystrokes. Theoretically, it makes it easy to choose the correct address and expedites checkout.

Don't make the mistake of confusing autofill and address autocomplete. Autofill, while cool, is a feature embedded in some browsers. Suppose the user has previously entered address information while in the browser. They can choose to have it save their data for use later. However, this means they’ve saved their information at some point before.

Address Autocomplete is a tool companies must embed into the form and checkout process. Most often, this is done via a plugin or API. Once enabled, it provides the user with a drop-down list of addresses to choose from. It enhances the user experience and gives sales and marketing a helping hand with revenue goals.

Why address autocomplete matters

Did you know 53% of users will leave a page if it takes more than 3 seconds to load? Three seconds isn't that long, but if you're waiting on a website, it feels frustrating. Now think about the address section on your checkout or forms. Does it take more than 3 seconds to get past it? How does that impact your customers?

Site and form load time, responsiveness, and the users journey are all about reducing friction. If your users experience friction during checkout, they're less likely to work with you. A major pain point for users is not only having to manually enter an address but also when a suggested address is way off the mark.

Smarty® tackles the problem in a few ways. First, Smarty only suggests pre-validated addresses. This reduces the number of keystrokes needed to suggest a valid address. Second, Smarty can empower you through geocoding to predict addresses sooner. Best of all, because of these features, your users can have their address predicted in as few as 5 keystrokes.

Download our ebook, Magical Benefits of Address Autocomplete, to learn more about database cleansing. Plus, discover four other address verification uses that deliver impressive ROI.

Address autocomplete for reducing checkout abandonment

Mobile users account for as much as 58.97% of all users. This means most of your traffic is mobile. This makes the user experience on mobile even more critical than the experience on desktop. If you consider the average number of address fields is 6 fields, that's a lot of opportunity to have a "fat finger" mistake and frustration. Who wouldn't want to leave with all that extra work?

Again, address fields can be the most tedious and longest part of your checkout process. It's best to cut the time down with a trusty address autocomplete tool such as Smarty's US Address Autocomplete. Let your user skip tapping on the unending address fields.

Typos, errors, and the cost of bad addresses

If you think a bad address tool or no address tool is bad for eCommerce and lead generation, wait until you find out the havoc it's wreaking on your database. It's estimated that 20–30% of addresses already in a database are incorrect.

While some of the address errors are genuine mistakes, these could be things like missing a suite number or just a slip of the hand, but some of them are downright nefarious. They may be from competitors testing your site or from customers who aren't ready to buy but also don't want to give you their information yet.

If the address was entered incorrectly by accident, this could cause credit cards to decline and hurt your sales and conversion rate. It can also give bad information for shipping and risk analysis. Either way, you're in a lurch with bad data, return shipping, processing fees, and declining sales.

The best customer is one who’s happy. Giving your customers a tailored experience will help them and you. Autocomplete is a simple step that gives you an advantage and helps your customers succeed. Check our Smarty's US Address Autocomplete and get your magical advantage today.