Matt Clarke: How Technology Can Enhance Borrower’s Experience by Supporting Lender

Matt Clarke is Chief Operations Officer and Chief Finance Officer of Churchill Mortgage, Brentwood, Tenn.

Last month, the mortgage industry saw radical change as COVID-19’s impact on the economy led the Federal Reserve to significantly cut rates to nearly zero, resulting in a spike in refi business. As the industry becomes increasingly digital, mortgage professionals must find a way to survive and keep up with demand at rapid speed. Unfortunately, the latest and greatest technology comes at a price. To truly succeed, mortgage professionals need to determine strategies that reduce expenses while offering a convenient relationship-based mortgage experience for borrowers.

The Balancing Act to Improve Experiences

An online mortgage process may seem like a convienent and new experience for borrowers. However, there are still many processes that must be addressed manually on the lender’s end, so lenders need to leverage technology that streamlines the process and can accelerate the typical manual underwriting times. Using artificial intelligence (AI), some lenders have been able to identify, store and analyze borrower information easier to thus streamline processes, but AI still needs to see more adoption to help expedite the underwriting process on the back end.

While technology can have incredible benefits for both the lender and the consumer, the lenders themselves, who tailor processes to meet the needs of each individual consumer, create the personalized customer experience. In fact, Fannie Mae reported that mortgage lenders provide the most influential source of mortgage information, which is why working with a lender is so important. The best balance is using technology to improve processes for employees while reducing costs.

Even in our highly digital world, human interaction is still considered more trustworthy and leads to a better customer experience. Though borrowers may begin their process through technology, it is important to remember that they still want and need guidance and support as they make the largest financial decisions of their lives.

Better Employee Experiences Lead to Better Customer Experiences

For lenders to focus on acting as mentors throughout the homebuying process and providing the greatest customer experience, they must have support from their organization. By investing in technology that provides greater efficiency at a lower cost, lenders can spend more time fostering relationships with borrowers and less time bogged down with processes and procedures.

For example, mortgage companies can partner with technology providers to create better mortgage software and steamline industry processes. Strategic partnerships can help lenders tap into technology that lowers the cost in to put loans on the books, offers the highest level of efficiency in terms of loans per person and the highest level of customer satisfaction and engagement.

Lenders are able to support more customers when they utilize technology that maximizes efficiency without increasing stress on the employee. Organizations that demonstrate a desire to improve their employees’ day-to-day work and that demonstrate understanding of their employees’ experience show that they want to support employees by making their processes better and their lives easier.

Ultimately, lenders need to provide greater value to their borrowers by creating a tailored, customer-centric experience. Positioning themselves as trusted mentors will enable customers to feel more at peace throughout the homebuying process. Organizations can accomplish this by supporting their employees through forming the right partnerships to implement emerging technology.

By selecting technology that underscores and helps fulfill a lender’s mission, lenders can see higher returns on investment as their employees’ jobs are made easier, so their focus can be on providing customers with an exceptional experience. Through strategic partnerships and technology implementation, lenders can engage with borrowers in a meaningful way, ensuring they have an experience that will make them customers for life.

(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policy of the Mortgage Bankers Association, nor do they connote an MBA endorsement of a specific company, product or service. MBA NewsLink welcomes your submissions. Inquiries can be sent to Mike Sorohan, editor, at msorohan@mba.org; or Michael Tucker, editorial manager, at mtucker@mba.org.)