How good of a job is your organization doing to provide the best possible customer journey for homeowners looking for their ideal mortgage lender? Your team knows that they’ll have a better chance of closing more loans when they have the proper tools in place to improve customer engagement. From a competitive standpoint, the easier it is to engage with your company as compared with your rivals, the better chance you have of keeping new customers on track throughout the customer journey.
When it comes to mortgage technology, you always want to maximize the effectiveness of your customer relationship management efforts. This will naturally involve tighter integration with POS and CRM platform technology.
Read on to learn more about how mortgage POS and CRM platform integrations are a lender’s mortgage technology “dream team” that you won’t be able to do without.
Partnership Integration
You need good integration with a range of partners to increase the success rate for closing loans. With automated software processes through a platform encompassing CRM plus tools for maximizing loan productivity, it’s never been easier to connect different institutions online for multi-channel engagement. This includes social media, email, text messages, voice calls and voicemail, of course, which means there will be a lot more data to collect, store and process. Partnership integration through a platform enables the right people to see the data they need to finalize decisions for loan origination through the buyer journey.
This kind of partnership integration can empower originators with the tools they need to succeed in a virtual world. It helps them stay proactive versus reactive. It makes good business sense that originators will be using dedicated software to gain market share as long as they have the most comprehensive and user-friendly capabilities baked into the platform.
Streamlined Processes
With streamlined processes, originators will have more time to focus on what really matters: providing a better borrower experience. People are already busy enough with their daily routines, so you don’t want them to have a sense they are spinning their wheels and wasting time when they begin to engage with your mortgage team. Your task is to offer a user-friendly mortgage point-of-sale that serves to speed up and smooth the customer journey.
Allowing borrowers to access mortgage lending with a CRM platform is a good strategy to improve overall customer satisfaction. Typically the best approach will be for a banker to adopt a customized CRM to best meet the needs of the particular demographics it focuses on, as noted by Chetu, which offers introductory information on these various tools.
Before your team brainstorms for what your bespoke CRM should include, it’s useful to consider common functionalities used to make the lending process simpler and more streamlined. Depending on your particular institution, some or all of these features will likely apply to the customer relationship management platform requirements you determine are actually mandatory and not just on your wish list of “would be nice to have” options.
Custom Build
The point of having a custom build is to ensure that you offer every one of the core capabilities your customer base needs to get into business with you. Relying on off-the-shelf, basic CRM programming may deprive you of options you need to set yourself apart from competitors. Your particular institution could have special services not universally available in your location, for example, which should be reflected in the software system you use to funnel leads through the customer journey.
Drip Campaign Marketing
Patience is certainly a virtue in lenders, and a coordinated drop campaign marketing effort will be invaluable in bringing customers along. Automating these connections to escalate the emails according to how email recipients respond to initial messages helps you sort out which people need more hand holding during the process. You also distinguish the more enthusiastic customers from those who still need more inspiration.
Integration Capabilities
A mortgage CRM platform is more valuable to you if it has full capability to integrate with other software systems you already rely on. Systems that are closed off from each other require more human effort to integrate data, leading to delays in lead generation and follow-up, for example. You improve customer relations when you keep better tabs on them and make sure that the relevant data about these encounters is available to your users throughout the organization.
Loan Management
You’ll want your platform to include loan management capabilities, which saves your team a lot of time because, for example, lenders will not have to call you for details since they can view all the information themselves instantly online. From basic details such as contact notes, communication logs and specific nature of the loan, lenders track loan status in the loan originating software or LOS system.
Mobile Functionality
With potential customers already accustomed to accessing information (even high security details such as medical appointments and their bank accounts), your platform should be designed with mobile functionality in mind. This involves a graphical interface that works with all types and sizes of devices as well as robust security to protect the institutions and the customers’ sensitive data.
Regulation Compliance
It will be easier for all parties concerned if the platform includes provisions for complying with the latest banking regulations, which is no easy trick if you are not paying close attention to updates from entities such as the Federal Housing Administration. Your CRM system ideally will update immediately to account for any changes in regulations concerning digital mortgages.
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Scalability
As your business grows and your customer base expands, you will need to know that the platform you use can scale appropriately without causing any interruptions in your business activities. You may also scale up the types of services and financial products on offer, so a robust system is a priority.
Social Media Component
With more and more potential customers relying on social media to help them find and compare mortgage offerings, it would be wise to include social functionality. Keep in mind that people often rely on recommendations from family and friends, many of whom they routinely connect with online through social channels. They view being online via social media as a normal part of their everyday life. You don’t want to be left out of this process.
Virtual Secretary
There’s no need for you to expand your secretarial pool to account for increases in demand from customers curious about what you have in digital mortgages. Having a virtual secretary component in your platform will make it easier for customers to make basic inquiries and handle tasks such as setting an appointment to consult on mortgage options.
Web-based Portal
Not all potential customers are going to be enthusiastic about running a dedicated app on their device to connect with your institution. For an alternative, make sure to include a web-based portal, to allow for more individuals to connect with you using software (the browser) they are already familiar with and use on a regular basis.
Managing All Leads Within a Robust Platform
For consistency in work processes, mortgage originators can now manage all leads easily from within the BeSmartee platform. The digital mortgage platform solution developers at BeSmartee have partnered with Insellerate, which is a mortgage customer relationship management (CRM) and engagement platform, an alliance designed to help lenders improve their loan originator productivity.
BeSmartee is also integrated with Salesforce and Velocify by Ellie Mae.
A recent webinar from BeSmartee and Insellerate showcases how to optimize CRM and POS platform usage for more loans in a virtual environment. The idea is to improve the borrower journey, with a result of better lead conversions thanks to automated processes. The journey goes more smoothly because of tight integration of LOS, POS and CRM functions all through an efficient, user-friendly platform.
The best mortgage POS platform should include features such as live chat to expedite communications as well as the capability to manage digital documents along with incorporated electronic signatures, according to a report from BNTouch. You can learn more about mortgage POS from the point of view of the developers at BNTouch here.
A major aspect of digital mortgages is that you don’t need to require customers to physically enter your banking institution, which is particularly useful during times of social distancing to contend with pandemic situations such as the novel coronavirus that leads to COVID-19 infections.
The bottom line is that originators like yourself can manage all incoming leads from within the BeSmartee platform, much more quickly and efficiently than trying to do these tasks without the benefits of automation and deep integration of POS and CRM activities.
Is Your POS Truly Connected to Your CRM?
When you have the right mortgage POS platform in place with customer relationship management processes, it will be easier for your staff to stay proactive rather than remaining reactive to customer wants and needs. Streamlining the process of setting up a digital mortgage depends on using state-of-the-art software and technology tools designed to improve the customer experience. Now, ask yourself, is your POS truly connected to your CRM?
To learn more about our bank technology services or to arrange for a consultation, please give us a call at (888) 276-1579 or contact our mortgage technology expert at sales@besmartee.com today.
