Online reviews are one of the most important ways for mortgage loan officers to advertise their business and those not ensuring their past customers leave reviews are dropping the ball, LOs say.
Just like any type of service, customers will look up their mortgage professional, noted Alex Margulis, loan officer at CrossCountry Mortgage. Margulis has over 199 customer reviews and has almost five stars on platforms used to find originators.
"I've had very good reviews with my past clients, so it shoots me up at a much higher ranking based on not just these organic reviews, but also because of the volume of the reviews being positive," he said
The CrossCountry LO notes he proactively follows up with clients to ask for reviews following the closing of a loan. "It would be my advice for other LOs to have reviews be more top of mind for their clients because ultimately it does help with SEO," he said.
Alex Naumovych, loan officer at First Alliance Home Mortgage, thinks online borrower feedback is "even more important than having knowledge about the mortgage process."
"Borrowers don't ask you if you know the mortgage guidelines, but if mortgage reviews are very good from previous customers, then that will help get more business through the door," the Washington D.C.-based LO said. "It's also a good way for customers to see if an LO actually knows what they're doing and if they care about the client."
Naumovych notes that if newbie loan officers are not prioritizing asking customers for reviews, it will be hard for them to establish themselves in the business.
Most mortgage companies, such as CrossCountry Mortgage and First Alliance Home Mortgage, rely on Experience.com to aggregate customer reviews for loan officers from different platforms. However, usually originators have to put in their own effort into creating Google review pages and Yelp pages, which the platform Experience aggregates from.
LOs say their lender CRM systems usually ping borrowers numerous times with reminders to leave reviews, but that can be seen as a nuisance by some. That's when a personalized touch is key.
Andrew Dort, who runs brokerage shop Pride Lending, sends his customers videos thanking them for business and asking for a review. According to Dort, that has worked well in empowering borrowers to leave online commentary.
"I'll leave [borrowers] a video message after closing just thanking them and then asking them to leave the review right there on the video message, and then dropping a link, and that seems to have the highest engagement for me," he said.
Dort says he'll ask customers one or two times, but no more. "I feel like after that point, it could just become a chore for them, and I'd rather not sour their experience," he said.
While all professionals who rely on reviews hope for accolades and five stars, sometimes that doesn't happen.
The best thing to do when you receive a rating that is less than favorable is to get in front of it, a handful of LOs said.
"You have to be responding to the good and the bad reviews," added Dort. " If you do, you have more authority to respond to those negative reviews with a constructive kind of feedback. Oftentimes for business owners it's setting the record straight, because there's always two sides to a story."
Margulis echoed similar sentiments underpinning the "importance of taking a proactive approach in managing reviews."
"[If it's a bad review] it's important to always respond and explain what went wrong that way anytime you see the review and read through the comments of that particular review from the consumer, they can see my reaction or my response to that review outlining my side of the story."
