Mortgage companies are faced with the challenge of lead generation and capture. They need to find prospective borrowers for loans, but there are many obstacles in this highly competitive industry. A mortgage automation platform like Capacity can address a large number of these challenges. This article will discuss some of the biggest challenges facing mortgage companies and their loan originators and discuss how AI-powered systems can help with effective lead generation.
Challenges of the lead generation process and capture for loan originators.
A mortgage company is in the business of helping people buy a house. However, it’s not as easy as it sounds. These teams need an effective lead generation process to help attract potential borrowers and nurture leads through the origination process.
The challenges that mortgage companies face include the following:
Low conversion.
The buyer’s journey for borrowers looking to buy a home is lengthy and complex. Borrowers need to provide a large number of documents and meet financial and income requirements. Thus, the conversion rate (the number of borrowers whose mortgages are approved compared to the number of leads) can be low.
High competition.
The mortgage industry is saturated and highly competitive. Because of this, leads are a precious commodity for mortgage companies. They often only have 24 hours to respond to potential borrowers. If they don’t capture the interest and contact information of leads in that time frame, those potential borrowers will use another company to facilitate their home purchase.
Differentiation.
With thousands of mortgage companies in the U.S. alone, it’s difficult for a particular business to stand out in the crowd when everyone offers similar benefits. Teams face a problem: how do they create lead capture processes that are more effective than their competition?
Timely follow-up.
It’s difficult and time-consuming to decipher the highest quality, ready-to-go buyers from prospects with less chance or interest in completing the mortgage process. Processors often find themselves stretched to the limit. Plus, there are only so many hours in a day a loan officer can engage in follow-up.
Time-consuming paperwork.
The process for approving a mortgage can be cumbersome and time-consuming. Originators spend much of their time completing paperwork rather than focusing on higher-value tasks such as nurturing qualified borrowers.
How mortgage automation platforms eliminate lead generation and capture challenges.
Mortgage automation platforms effectively harness the power of AI to streamline lead generation and sales. Here are the most common ways they can help.
Answer questions to help them become qualified leads.
Prospective borrowers expect fast, accurate answers to their questions. A mortgage automation platform like Capacity provides seamless customer assistance. It draws information from your loan origination system, guidelines from Fannie, Freddie, USDA, FHA, and VA, as well as an automated mortgage glossary and FAQs pack.
Capacity can answer more than 84% of all inquiries on its own, without any involvement from human members of the company. If Capacity can’t answer a prospective borrower’s question, it will escalate the question to a human in the appropriate team via a ticket or live chat. As it’s always in learning mode, it will then add the answer to its knowledge base.
Although human team members need time to eat, sleep, and relax, Capacity doesn’t. It provides a 24/7/365 solution to leads looking for more information about a company’s products or services.
An AI-powered chatbot can start the collection process.
AI-powered chatbots like Capacity do more than just answer questions from leads. They can also guide potential borrowers through a sales funnel and capture their contact information.
As a lead is captured, Capacity will ask for more information about their needs or budget so that sales team members can follow up with them with more context about the mortgage terms.
A chatbot can route leads to the right person.
A chatbot like Capacity captures information from a borrower and can direct their information to the most appropriate team member or branch of a company. It can also schedule appointments and follow-up calls, so your team has lending opportunities lined up with little effort.
Automated workflows trigger follow-ups.
With a mortgage automation platform like Capacity, you won’t have to worry about sales team members being too busy or forgetting to send emails or text messages. Capacity can pull information from predefined workflows and send communication at the appropriate step in the process. This can include reminding a borrower to send their pay stubs or notifying them their loan just moved into underwriting.
Artificial intelligence solutions are a no-brainer for mortgage companies.
Mortgage companies need to have a strong lead generation strategy. They can’t afford to miss out on potential borrowers, and the leads they bring in are too precious for them not to capture, nurture, and respond to quickly.
Automated systems are capable of identifying and qualifying leads. They’re also able to keep a lead moving through the pipeline with less effort from sales professionals.
When mortgage companies don’t have to worry about lead generation, capture, and follow-up tasks anymore, their team can focus on what they do best—helping borrowers buy new homes.