Amazon has transformed the dynamic of the average American household. Today, nearly 20% of Americans have access to a smart speaker and that number continues to grow. Amazon dominates the space with 61.9% market share and their Alexa, along with other smart voice devices, are becoming an integral part of our daily lives.
Alexa-enabled device owners can buy groceries, order a pizza, make appointments and more as additional businesses adopt Alexa Skills to meet consumers’ needs – including the mortgage industry.
“In a mobile world where mortgage pros are often on the go, not at a desk, voice technology is clearly part of our future,” said Jim Jumpe, Chief Marketing Officer at Arch MI. “Arch MI’s commitment to innovation made Alexa an obvious next step in our mission to bring customers the best of technology to enhance their efficiencies.”
Arch MI now allows mortgage professionals to utilize their Amazon Alexa device to retrieve quotes, find an account manager and call customer service.
“It lets lenders leverage the latest industry technology in a way that recognizes the multitasking so often required of loan originators with demanding workloads,” said Jumpe.
Mortgage professionals can add the Arch MI Skill to an Alexa device easily by saying, “Enable Arch MI.” After the device enables the Skill, they can then say, “Alexa, launch Arch MI,” which will enable them to make the following requests:
- “Alexa, get a RateStar quote”
- “Alexa, find my account manager”
- “Alexa, call customer service”
- “Help”
“As more team members studied customer service applications for Alexa, they became enthusiastic about the possibilities,” said Jumpe. “That energy continued to build as we achieved a number of firsts – including taking our first Alexa-enabled customer service call and delivering our first RateStar rate quote through Alexa.”
Early adoption has been high among lenders who are already using an Alexa device on a daily basis, while Arch MI hopes their new Skill will encourage an even wider audience of mortgage professionals to experience the convenience of voice-directed service.
“Our commitment is to offer the industry’s best customer service, no matter which channel you use to reach us. Our goal throughout this entire rollout has been to focus on providing a simple, seamless user experience,” said Jumpe.
And Arch MI is providing just that as customers use Alexa, Arch MI’s CONNECT Portal or a direct phone call for customer service. With more options, lenders are free to choose which channel best supports their needs.
“Today, people expect ATM-level simplicity, and we’re getting great feedback from customers who are finding the Alexa Skill useful, convenient and easy to use,” said Jumpe.
