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Recap: How to Improve Servicing Profitability During and After COVID-19

by | Oct 16, 2020

During HousingWire Annual 2020, Albertelli Law (ALAW) CEO, Jim Albertelli, joined our Senior Advisor of Lending Solutions, John Heck, to discuss best practices of using AI-powered technology to improve servicing profitability during and after COVID-19. Jim and John shared insightful pointers on streamlining and standardizing data, automating your processes and decisions, and applying it all to the current situation that many borrowers and lenders are facing. 

What are the benefits of adopting an AI-driven process to streamline and standardize data?

Jim mentioned that the more you use AI, the better and bigger the dataset grows because it always digests valuable information. By adopting an AI-driven process, a lending company has more insight to make better decisions.

“Using something as simple as an AI-powered chatbot can give lenders a lift by developing a knowledge base and layering on AI to make better real-time decisions,” stated Jim. “These decisions could be directing a loan inquiry to the right person for additional scale or replacing some of the less complex interactions and standardizing them to assess borrowers more efficiently and cost-effectively.”

John added that he believes, “getting exposed to AI and having a long-term strategic vision is the best way to proceed.”

If you’re interested in exposing yourself to AI, check out our on-demand webinar: Getting Started With AI Automation.

Why is it important to automate your helpdesk processes and decision making?

“We say iteration is innovation, so at ALAW, we’ve applied the AI initially to the helpdesk functionality to take in data and examine how our users prefer to communicate,” shared Jim. Once Jim and his team have this insight into their users’ behavior, they can reach out using the preferred methodology and get better results. 

Having visibility into all of the different standards for responses enables Jim and his team to quickly glean insights, add the insights to their knowledge base, and provide consistent answers that are in line with what their consumers are looking for. 

Because automation can help your team provide quality and consistent answers to your consumer base, automation eliminates biases, displays more inclusivity, and increases transparency for compliance teams. It’s important to be extremely thoughtful when communicating with borrowers during this hard time and using AI leaves less room for error. 

In addition to automating your helpdesk, it’s important to make sure the helpdesk is backed by machine learning, so it’s always improving and reviewing the information in the knowledge base. John pointed out that the beauty of machine learning is that it can identify when the same question is asked in a new way. AI can also learn to involve an expert on your team when a question comes in that it doesn’t know the answer to.  

“The key to a really good AI solution is its ability to give immediate answers to people so they don’t have to go someplace else to ask the question,” shared John.   

For more use cases of AI in the Mortgage Industry, check out our recent article: The Most Successful Use Cases for AI in the Mortgage Industry

Why is it critical to automate your processes associated with forbearance, loss mitigation, default management, and bankruptcy? 

Jim warned that there will probably be more than one wave of refi’s and forbearance requests, so it’s important to use AI to be strategic for what is about to come. “At ALAW, We’re leveraging AI in a number of ways but ultimately, we believe in the digital mortgage,” said Jim. “Even by intersecting consumers in our call center, we’re developing the ability to make decisions at high volume around various loss mitigation strategies.”

Because a refinance is just one way to mitigate some expenses, Jim mentioned that by having all of the standards from Fannie, Freddie, Ginnie digested into your helpdesk, you can become an active partner with a borrower. “By running AI over portfolio retention, you can look for the likelihood of foreclosure in the future, which empowers lenders to be prepared and scalable,” concluded Jim.