ALPHERA Financial Services has reported an 80% hike in its website users, as increasing numbers of people opted to go online to research information on new finance options or manage their existing finance agreement, a trend which it says has been accelerated by the impacts of the ongoing Covid-19 pandemic.
The company, which is BMW Group’s independent motor finance division, said that user numbers for ALPHERA’s “self-serve” platform, MyFinance more than doubled in 2020 and users continued to grow by 7.2% in H1 2021.
The rise in online activity has seen ALPHERA launch its brand new company website to improve the user experience. This features a contemporary design that showcases the company’s new brand imagery and is another milestone in refreshing its corporate identity in recognition of its 15th year in the UK car finance market.
Preston Rogers, director at ALPHERA, commented: “The last 18 months has shown that people are very comfortable with the accelerated move to digital platforms. Most of our website users last year were, in fact, private customers rather than dealer partners, so we felt our fifteenth year was the perfect opportunity to invest in a re-design and make our online presence as customer friendly as possible.
“We are committed to helping customers make informed decisions about their car finance products and our newly refreshed website helps us to achieve this by cutting through the jargon and presenting finance and insurance products to customers in a clear and transparent way.”
The upgraded website includes a new content management system, reporting tools and improved search engine optimisation. In addition to the customer functionality available on the new website, ALPHERA continues to offer online services and information to its 2,000 partners - brokers, as well as franchise and independent dealers – including a revamped “partner portal” as well as “content” and “training” hubs.
It also enables existing customers to manage their finance agreement online to make the user journey as easy and logical as possible.
In 2020 ALPHERA surpassed 100,000 motor finance agreements during a 12-month period for the first time ever, with its 104,504 new customer contracts representing a 20.6% improvement over 2019. This amounted to £1.8 billion in lending during 2020, a record figure for ALPHERA and a 24% improvement over the previous year (£1.45 billion).
