At the start of 2013,
A key component of Guaranteed Rate's online experience is a status tracker that gives consumers the ability to monitor the progress of their loan from a desktop or mobile device, as well through email and text messages. Guaranteed Rate drew inspiration from the Domino's Pizza Tracker tool that lets customers monitor their orders throughout the process, says Jerry Gross, the lender's chief information officer.
"People have become more and more obsessed about tracking their lives, let alone their mortgage When we saw this, we said, 'We need to build our own pizza tracker in the mortgage industry,'" Gross said during a keynote presentation at the 15th Annual Mortgage Technology Conference, ongoing this week in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., and sponsored by National Mortgage News and Mortgage Technology.
In addition to the loan tracker, Guaranteed Rate devised an online application process that was designed to let borrowers apply and customize a rate and loan product, receive free credit reports and scores and conducted automated approval in about 15 minutes. To do this, the application asks for about eight pieces of information upfront and to begin the initial connection with borrowers, rather than trying to get every piece of information needed all at once. Returning customers have their information prepopulated in the forms, letting borrowers simply review the information and correct it as needed.
The company's loan volume was growing even before its big online push. In 2012, Guaranteed Rate originated $14.7 billion in mortgages, up from $6.9 billion in volume in 2011. Since launching its online capabilities, Guaranteed Rate has generated about $1.5 billion of its volume, or more than 6,000 loans, using the new technology.
In developing the technology, an emphasis was placed on creating one consistent base of software code for both desktop and mobile "that's smart enough to look at the form factor it's running on to make the appropriate adjustments," Gross says.
"Our online experience is exactly the same as our tablet experience, which is exactly the same as our smartphone experience. It's all the same code and it's adaptive and responsive That results in a consistent, high-level experience," he says.
