How seeing yourself helps increase conversion up to 15%
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Advertising is based on one thing, happiness. And you know what happiness is? Happiness is the smell of a new car. It's freedom from fear. It's a billboard on the side of the road that screams reassurance that whatever you are doing is okay. You are okay.
We’re not in advertising. But we are in the business of reassurance: You’re in the right place. You belong here.
When someone joins CWU with our forms, that person looks up their employer. If they can’t find their employer in the list, they enter their employer’s name manually, and to help the membership team, we ask the applicant what industry sector their employer is in. Of the applicants who enter their employer manually, around 66% go on to join the union.
Applicants who find their employer in the list — say “Royal Mail” — get to skip the Industry question – because we already know what sector their employer is in – and so go straight to Contracted hours. But much more than that, over 81% go on to join.
A user flow diagram that splits in two at an employer step, leading to contracted-hours for those who found their employer and industry for those that did not.
Over 81% of people who found their employer joined the union – 15% more than those that did not.
It’s not because they save a little time – although that doesn’t hurt.
It’s because it helps them feel seen.
They don’t hesitate. They don’t doubt.
They keep going, because the system reflects who they are.
That’s the real power of great form design: not just reducing friction, but building confidence through reassurance that you’re in the right place. And because this is a thing we can see in our analytics – and we’re always digging to see what we can improve – we can translate that into actionable change.
In this case, if every applicant had seen their employer, our numbers suggest it should have translated into many hundreds of additional members.
Help your membership team, and make your new members happy
Now, it’s true that employer lists are rarely exhaustive, and won’t have every small employer. It’s also true that your membership team can’t add every unknown employer ahead of time, which is why – after seeing consistent results like this – we now periodically send cleaned summary lists of manually entered employer names to membership teams.
When applicants self-assign to their employer, your membership team has more accurate data. Your new members benefit from personalised, timely and accurate onboarding and branch assignment.
Our forms don’t stay still. If we can get you more – and happier – members, we will.