Servicers That Have Earned Borrower Trust Can’t Afford to Lose It Now

Jane Mason is CEO and Founder of workflow automation application CLARIFIRE®. She has more than 20 years of experience in process automation and financial services technology and has received multiple awards and accolades in her local business community and on the national mortgage stage.

If JD Power’s most recent U.S. Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction Study is an accurate reflection of servicer performance, there’s a lot for the industry to feel good about. Overall customer satisfaction rose since last year’s study, and servicers made strides in a number of areas, including digital tools, issue resolution, and escrow communication.

The study also noted that while servicers are enjoying a higher level of trust among borrowers, that trust must be continually earned. The question is how—because servicing operations are in for a major stress test in the months ahead.

How Servicers Are Getting It Right

This year’s study found mortgage servicers scored 607 on a 1,000-point scale for borrower satisfaction, an 11-point increase over last year. What is interesting is that the increase happened even though more borrowers are having trouble making their mortgage payments.

By the first quarter of 2026, mortgage delinquencies stood at 4.44% of all loans outstanding, an increase of 40 basis points from one year ago, according to the Mortgage Bankers Association’s National Delinquency Survey. Foreclosure starts climbed too, reaching 0.24% of loans, a four-basis-point increase from the first quarter of 2025.

The JD Power study reflects these trends. Only 41% of borrowers considered themselves financially healthy, down from 52% in 2022, while the share of borrowers who believe they are at risk of foreclosure rose from 17% to 30%.

Yet in spite of these financial strains, 86% of borrowers surveyed say they probably will or definitely will use their current servicer again. JD Power credits much of that improvement to servicers executing more effectively, with gains in digital experiences, escrow and fee communication, and issue resolution. The study also found that trust drives borrower loyalty more than any other factor that was measured, including the ease of doing business, communication, staff quality, problem resolution or digital tools.

Borrower trust also improves when servicers handle middle servicing processes well, like escrow changes. Among the 75% of borrowers who have escrow accounts, 58% saw a payment increase this year due to rising taxes and insurance premiums. Yet borrowers who got a clear explanation for the escrow change were 35% more likely to trust their servicer and 33% more likely to stick with them.

Real Challenges Lie Ahead

It’s remarkable that servicing operations are improving at a time when delinquencies are rising. But in spite of the progress they’ve made, some servicers may not be ready for where the market goes from here.

Housing economists don’t expect that pressure to ease. MBA’s most recent forecast projects 30-year fixed rates will hold at 6.5% through 2026, 2027 and 2028, offering borrowers little relief. Home prices are expected to keep climbing too, with MBA forecasting appreciation of 0.6% in 2026, 0.8% in 2027 and 1.4% in 2028, adding further weight to the property tax bills that drive up escrow payments.

Recently, MBA Vice President and Deputy Chief Economist Joel Kan noted that the job market grew bleaker in July, with a loss of 23,000 jobs and 103,000 in downward revisions to the prior two months’ figures, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The unemployment rate ticked down slightly, but only because more workers left the workforce, while wage growth fell behind the pace of inflation.

Insurance costs are expected to continue rising as well, with natural disasters growing more frequent and more severe. That trajectory will likely produce more escrow shortages, which are made more complicated once a borrower falls behind on payments and moves into loss mitigation. Every workout option a servicer offers requires recalculating how it affects escrow, and many servicers still rely on spreadsheets to calculate these numbers.

Obviously, servicers have no control over the financial pressures borrowers face. What they can control is how clearly and how early they communicate when a borrower’s situation changes, whether that’s a missed or partial payment, a job loss or a higher escrow payment. Fortunately, the JD Power study provides clues as to where servicers need to focus their attention.

What Needs to Happen

According to JD Power, poor customer service now tops the list of reasons borrowers would switch servicers, at 43% of respondents. For servicers that have worked hard to improve the borrower experience, maintaining that progress in an increasingly challenging market will require an ongoing commitment to customer service and investment in the right tools.

How a servicer performs with borrowers often comes down to how well it manages and uses the data it already has. Most servicers collect enormous amounts of information about every borrower and loan in their portfolio. Yet this information is often scattered across different systems and departments, leaving servicing teams with little visibility into signs that a borrower may need help.

Many organizations have been able to close that gap with workflow automation built specifically for mortgage servicing operations, which allows them to connect data, systems and people across the full servicing lifecycle. Rather than relying on borrowers to reach out when they need help, they use rules-based automation to flag changes in borrower behavior the moment it happens and trigger the correct response automatically.

Successful servicers are also using this technology to provide their teams with a real-time view of every loan. When a borrower’s account status, payment history and correspondence are in one place—not  scattered across emails and spreadsheets—whoever answers a borrower’s call can see the full picture immediately, and won’t have to put the borrower on hold to track down answers.

Workflow automation also helps streamline middle servicing processes like escrow. By building escrow calculation logic directly into servicing workflows, rather than recalculating balances by hand using spreadsheets, servicers are able to provide borrowers with consistent, clear answers when their mortgage payment changes. As the JD Power study shows, that kind of consistency is what builds trust.

There Is No Finish Line

In his writings, Plato credits the Greek philosopher Heraclitus with the idea that “you cannot step into the same river twice.” It’s instructive for where servicers are today, because the housing market is very much like a river—always flowing, yet constantly shifting in power and volume.

While the JD Power study reflects real improvements in borrower satisfaction, any servicer would be ill-advised to consider the progress it made as a job well done—because the job is never done.

Right now, the servicers likely to continue improving are pairing communication and outreach with technology built to flag problems early, calculate escrow consistently and give every team member the tools to continue earning a borrower’s trust. That’s because they understand the housing market river will keep shifting, and so must they.

(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 submissions from member firms. Inquiries can be sent to Editor Michael Tucker or Editorial Manager Anneliese Mahoney.)