Insightful borrower data and enhanced tech solutions are paramount to success in today’s modern mortgage industry. HousingWire recently spoke with Dan Catinella, chief lending officer at Total Expert, about how Customer Intelligence technology is improving deal flow and pushing the customer experience into the 21st century.
HousingWire: As mortgage lenders continue to look for ways to cut costs amid a high-rate environment, where are some key areas that they should still look to innovate?
Dan Catinella: Lenders should lean into the power of their tech stack as they try to cut costs in the current market situation. By implementing the right technology within their organizations, traditional financial institutions can further innovate and stay ahead of the competition.
Evaluating which tools in your current stack have the largest ROI and streamlining the use of them are key to ensuring loan officers are working most efficiently. The best tools will allow lenders to be innovative in how they target prospects and engage with current customers.
Total Expert uses data to gain knowledge of how customers and prospects are interacting with marketing and sales, which helps them to make well-informed decisions about how to better connect and engage with them moving forward.
Upgrading or streamlining your tech toolkit to efficiency-boosting technology solutions like Total Expert provides traditional lenders the advantages needed to compete in a difficult market and is a great place to start when minimizing costs.
HW: What role does Customer Intelligence play in today’s challenging housing market?
DC: Today’s challenging market makes it critical for mortgage lenders to connect with customers using hyper-personalized messaging based on where they are in their financial journeys.
Explaining market changes, educating on financial strategies, and tapping into referral networks are all important ways to connect with customers, even when they may not be looking to buy a home. Staying engaged and informed is key to uncovering and growing relationships.
Total Expert’s Customer Intelligence is the perfect tool to surface customer insights and provide lenders with the intent and behavior data they need to connect at key moments of opportunity. With a quickly shifting market, lenders who leverage data and intelligent automation can surface opportunities to serve past customers and ensure they are optimizing their opportunities through recommended actions and pre-built workflows. The tool is about injecting the human element at the right time and giving sales staff the intelligence through data and insights to have those meaningful conversations.
At the moment, this might also mean engaging customers with more educational content. Laying out strategies that look beyond the current market conditions will make sure customers know they have someone they can trust when they decide it’s time to buy.
Strategies including the cost of waiting, rent vs buy, and other loan opportunities for first-time homebuyers will help optimize the top of your funnel. When loan officers have access to the right data to inform and advise on these strategies, customers will feel empowered to decide when the time is right.
HW: How can Customer Intelligence increase borrower retention and benefit deal flow?
DC: Customer Intelligence is a game-changer for customer retention because it combines key insights with industry-leading intelligent automation. Borrowers are more likely to remain loyal and have a rewarding experience when they’re working with a financial institution that anticipates their financial needs.
The various customer insights trigger customizable workflows, allowing lenders to connect proactively based on the individual customer’s unique financial situation at that moment in time and nurture the relationship with personalized content.
Customer Intelligence also helps mortgage lenders accelerate deal flow by marrying borrower intent with automation to identify opportunities that would have otherwise been missed.
Through real-time alerts, customer data can turn into funded loans by blending it with customer intent data, allowing lenders to quickly understand their needs and provide the products and services that support their individual circumstances.
HW: How is Total Expert’s Customer Intelligence helping lenders close more deals?
DC: The more data and insights lenders have available, the better customer experience they can provide. Loan officers can use the data surfaced by Customer Intelligence to inform their recommendations and financial strategies for their customers, who will in turn feel supported and more likely to develop long-term relationships.
In today’s challenging market, helping customers understand their options to refinance, the benefits of owning to build equity, or the option for a reverse mortgage are especially important. Customer Intelligence can help loan officers surface data about their customers to better understand what would be of value to them, given where they’re at in their financial journey. For example, if a customer is at the point of needing to purchase a home but is feeling uneasy about current interest rates, loan officers can share strategies for a refinance down the line once rates lower.
Serving as a consultant and mortgage resource for customers when the market hits a down period is critical. We are seeing a mindset shift for many originators. They are taking more of an advisory role than ever before.
By harnessing the best technology and data intelligence to surface opportunities, they are staying in front of customers’ needs and maintaining relationships with customers in new and innovative ways. Staying connected with customers and making them feel educated and empowered will put mortgage lenders in a stronger position to close more deals.
To learn more about the advantages of Customer Intelligence in today’s market, visit totalexpert.com.
