Mortgage Servicers Embrace Technology to Drive Better Homeowner Experiences: Cenlar’s Shanth Ananthuni
Shanth Ananthuni is Vice President of Information Technology with Cenlar FSB, Ewing, N.J.
The mortgage industry has undergone significant transformation in recent years. Consumer behavior is rapidly evolving to the ever-changing tech landscape. Because we live in a world where we are increasingly dependent on technology, as servicers, we need to strike a balance between staying competitive in the marketplace while also providing the best possible homeowner experience.
We know that some homeowners want the answers to their questions to be at their fingertips. Whether that is through an Interactive Voice Response, a chatbot, a mobile app or a website, it’s clear that self-service technology is now taking center stage and driving the industry.
So, how are we adapting to the new norm?
Servicing, which has historically been considered a tech-underinvested industry, is shifting toward the cutting edge, delivering new solutions to improve effectiveness, decrease risk and drive a better experience for both clients and their homeowners.
Loan origination continues to get closer to fully automated. Mortgage servicers are also looking at new technologies to streamline post-closing processes. For example, intelligent automation is gaining traction in servicing and demonstrating some of the greatest value to better serve homeowners.
For Cenlar, intelligent automation is key. For example, we have been working on more than 30 automation projects, including streamlining mortgage insurance (MI) cancellation requests, which eliminates a common pain point for homeowners who are waiting to hear back regarding whether their request to remove MI has been accepted. Now, homeowners can go to the homeowner web site and request to have MI removed, triggering Cenlar’s automation solution. Our system then sends the homeowner the appropriate letter within a week. Cenlar is seeing 97% improved operational efficiency and reduction in operational risk and homeowners get responses four times faster.
Using automation technology not only makes it more effortless for homeowners to do business, but it also frees up servicing employees from manual tasks, allowing them to do more analytical, higher value work for our clients.
Moving Into the Digital Age
In mortgage servicing, the homeowner is always top of mind. You need to ensure that your technology revolves around enriching every interaction with homeowners, from their initial visit to the website, through the call center, to a chatbot or to a mobile app.
Adopting digital technologies has become essential for mortgage servicers. Homeowners want an easy and efficient way to communicate with their servicer.
At Cenlar, our chatbots manage 150,000 interactions a month, with 85% of those people never having to speak with a live representative. And nearly 94% of all payments Cenlar receives are handled via self-service, digital channels.
These are just the most recent examples of what we are doing to streamline and enhance processes to make the homeowner experience better.
Another key factor when implementing the latest digital tools is to actively listen to your clients to better understand what their homeowners want and how they want to communicate with you. Servicers don’t just manage homeowners’ accounts, we are ‘listeners’ to homeowner needs and concerns. We gather this information and provide it to our clients so that we might partner to deliver the best possible products and services to their homeowners.
Technological change has been embraced on the origination side for years, however, servicing is now ripe for innovation.
(Views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect policies 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 Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)
