“For any mortgage lender that wants to stay in business and grow, there is no going back to the pre-pandemic days. Covid-19 is our industry’s disruption, the stimulus that has motivated a leap into technology where before we were just dipping our toes. Now that we’ve proven we can do business faster and more efficiently, it’s time to make the change permanent,” wrote the CEO of States Title, Max Simkoff, in a recent Forbes article.
While no one knows what’s next, it’s time to be proactive rather than reactive, and consider the consistent tasks that can be simplified with technology to move towards a tech-savvy future. We’ve outlined a few places to start.
Deflecting FAQs.
The empowered consumer of today has high expectations for the companies they give their business to, and your borrowers are no different. Your current and prospective borrowers demand insight into the loan process—whenever and wherever they need it.
The same goes for today’s employees. Your loan officers and originators don’t want to spend their days searching for information. Team members are beginning to look for tech-forward solutions that don’t require manual and repetitive tasks. Many mortgage companies are adopting the use of AI-powered chatbots to help answer FAQs, so their teams can focus on higher-level tasks. Bots can help answer the following topics and more:
- Deal structuring
- Origination/servicing/forbearance
- Loan process status
- Loan officer onboarding
Connecting to key systems.
The mortgage professional of today is often working across multiple tools and systems, many of which are outdated and difficult to navigate. Even at this late juncture, most of these legacy systems aren’t even mobile-friendly. This means that if you’re out in the field, there’s no easy way to get your hands on critical bits of intel. Lending companies should find and implement technology that provides real-time, immediate access (desktop and mobile) to the intel that supports them. Integrating with LOS and microservice providers will make it that much easier for your team to do the meaningful work that drives customer satisfaction and ROI.
Streamlining processes.
Loan origination and servicing are rule-based processes that require a lot of manual steps. The lenders that have begun to streamline the steps in those processes are setting their teams up for success. Setting processes up for automation, including fulfillment, refinancing, closing, warehouse lending, servicing, and forbearance, will enable lenders to quickly deploy technology and further the efficiency and experience that borrowers and employees are looking for.
Automating decisions.
When it comes to increasing your team’s productivity, it’s necessary to start predicting the next step. With data and machine learning-empowered technology, lenders can automate the best decision for their organization moving forward.
This could involve arming team members with the knowledge, tools, and support to navigate any situation. Or, knowing exactly what your borrowers are looking for before they even get to your website and setting up a workflow to get them from point A to B. Whatever your decision is, it’s important to look for technology with the following features:
- Data-driven workflows
- Reporting and dashboarding
- Machine learning
- Automated cycle time reporting