The mortgage customer experience (CX) refers to all the touchpoints and effort you put into making borrowers feel important as they interact with your business and move through the borrower journey. Although difficult to define the scale that measures CX success, make no doubt about it, customer experience is directly linked to your pipeline and funding rate.
A recent study by PWC demonstrated this when they found that 86% of buyers were willing to pay more for a great customer experience, especially when it comes to big-ticket items. Yet another study, this one by Walker conducted in 2020, found that customer experience will be the key brand differentiator, overshadowing price or product. It’s just as alarming to see what negative customer service will do to a business. Current research found that one of the top reasons customers will change financial institutions is a poor experience.
Knowing how crucial customer experience is to the digital loan process, we’ve tailored these three areas where you can enhance the digital mortgage customer experience. Let’s get started.
Understand the Borrower Journey
The borrower journey is the roadmap of experiences that customers go through as they interact with your digital mortgage software and brand. It begins with their first impression –perhaps your mortgage website –and goes on long after they’ve applied. To begin enhancing it, consider the borrower’s needs, motivations, actions, and even barriers to action that they may encounter along the way. Ask yourself:
- What first motivated that borrower to perform that action?
- What would motivate them to move to take the next action?
- Are there any obstacles that prevent them from taking that next action?
Keep in mind that obstacles may be caused by technology that is unappealing or difficult to use. Therefore, when choosing a mortgage software vendor to partner with, thoroughly consider how fun it is for your borrower to use in addition to its utility to you.
Prioritize An Omnichannel Customer Experience
Modern digital consumers prefer to connect with mortgage brands across different channels. That means that your mortgage website, mobile app, social media profiles, instant messaging, mortgage POS, and any other channel must be on point and streamlined across the board.
Although every channel may lie on a different platform and serve a different function, the core purpose at each point should be to deliver an unrivaled experience and to guide the customer down the borrower’s journey. Streamlining and automation are crucial to a mortgage omnichannel CX, meaning data exchange between platforms –such as your LOS and mortgage POS –should be fully integrated.
Proactively Engage With Your Borrower
Innovation with real-time and self-serve functions empowers customers and helps them develop a deeper commitment to your brand and see the application through to funding. Here are a few of the high-value ways that you can proactively engage for a better CX:
- Automated Notifications – Customers appreciate reminders and notifications that keep them informed and provide gentle nudges to take the next step. These can come in automated SMS messages, email notifications, and dynamically updated borrower timelines.
- Educate Customers – Provide a library of articles and video resources for customers to devour on their own. This, too, is part of the borrower journey as many borrowers spend time learning in their consideration phase.
- Easily Accessible Information – Remove the obstacle of requiring the borrower to ask you for information. A borrower portal that shows what documents are pending, accepted, and next steps are standard. Take it a step further by providing downloadable approval letters, too!
LenderHomePage Elevates The Customer Experience In Lending
In a nutshell, within the customer experience lies a massive and untapped potential for growth and your competitive edge. But you’ll only go as far as your mortgage software platform can take you. We set to develop the preeminent mortgage suite as functional and flexible as it was a delight to use for both mortgage pros and their borrowers. Contact us today to discover how easy it is to kill the competition with a stellar CX powered by LenderHomePage.