Track 1: Role of originations vs. servicing in lifetime customer engagement

You must engage origination customers differently than servicing customers, but successful engagement in servicing also leads to new originations, which must be seamless. This session covers how customer engagement comes together across the customer's lifetime, and how you keep your customers ready for any life event or financial need they have.   

Transcription:

Heidi Patalano (00:05):

Welcome everybody. Thanks for joining us for the last session of the day here. All right. Everyone's making connections, which is awesome. That's great. We are having a discussion right now about the role of originations versus servicing in lifetime customer engagement. So my guests here are Diane Malal, head of Marketing and for Fin Locker, and Steve Majors, CEO of Synergy One Lending. And so I think maybe we can just start off by talking about how, what you do at Fin Locker and how it relates to this topic, maybe Diane. Okay.

Diane Mulhall (00:56):

So as Head of Marketing, Fin Locker, just to give you some awesome background, is a personal financial management app that was designed specifically for the mortgage industry. So think of your nerd wallets, but it's gonna prepare your home buyers to get mortgage ready. And so it's got your budgeting and your account management tools and all that, but it's also gonna tell your home buyers when they're actually achieve, debt to income ratio and credit and everything to get mortgage ready. It simplifies that process. So as marketer there, I work with our clients, we're our lenders periphery kind of companies, and we very much just work with them to market that product to their consumers so that they can then use that fully gen. Then the app really does take over the lead nurturing. And that's what I found kind of very interesting about if you listen to that previous session that was on the Gen Z home buyers, it's kind of, you can be using that social media to be getting those home buyers in and then, we can be taking that over to actually do the nurturing and provide that experience that is going to get their mortgage ready.

(02:17)

Allow you to do more of manage those home buyers that are ready to proceed with a loan, but then provide that experience and that they will then become customers for clients.

Heidi Patalano (02:32):

Right. Well, one thing that's very interesting about well the name of this, it's originations versus servicing, and so it's not just about getting those people who have never worked with you to do a new loan, but getting those servicing clients to then do a refinance, do a Helock, all of those things. And one thing I thought was really interesting is that Synergy one, you founded several 2013 if I'm correct. And you've only just gotten, well, I don't mean to say only just, but you've gotten into servicing recently, and so I wanted to ask you about that decision and perhaps it where, how that related to the lifetime customer engagement.

Steve Majerus (03:19):

Yeah, I think like most mortgage companies, we view servicing as an enhanced retention strategy. That kind of amplifies any CRM activity or other basic activities that companies or individual loan officers would want to engage in to retain a client. As we've built up almost a billion dollars in servicing since October. And of course to extend not only the lifetime value of that client to the company but in developing a retention strategy, it's an anello branded retention strategy inside the Fin Locker platform that we private labeled and designed specifically in a customized way. So we've taken some of the base technology that Fin Locker has and we've added additional components to it in a customized way so that over the long time, and again, this is early stage, this is not, we're not spiking the football yet, but as as time goes by, we expect that more, that more and more of our servicing clients will go into that portal, and not only will they use it to make their payments, but they'll get some of the additional enhanced features that Diana was talking about, whether it's checking home valuation, checking your credit, things like, like that. So there's more value inside that ecosystem that is tied to the loan officer and their individual client in a one to one way.

Heidi Patalano (04:52):

Right. Yeah. So let's talk about some of those things that kind of send a message to the like, this client is ready, they're looking at this and that. Can you talk about some of those, in detail?

Diane Mulhall (05:05):

So if you were to have a private label finger, there actually is an admin side as well. So it's all based on consumer permission data. That's what is driving things like the mortgage readiness checklist that the consumer is using. But then that consumer permission data is also being shown to the lender so that they can see, oh, these borrowers have reached that credit score level have got their debt to income ratio. They've got their saving goals. And so you can actually see when they're getting mortgage ready too. So when you can reach out to them and then as what people that have closed alone, you can see when they've got, you know from your OS that they've got, what their interest rate is, so when they'd be good to refinance when they've reached that 8% equity.

Heidi Patalano (06:01):

Steven, what does that outreach look like for your Ellos? Like how are they contacting you?

Steve Majerus (06:08):

A number of ways. I mean, I think one of the niches we've carved out some competency as a company is around social media support for building personal brand for loan officers. So that is a prospective activity of course for new clients, new client acquisition, things like that. But in terms of retention as I said, the each loan officer has a branded solution that is tied to the client of the servicing portfolio as well as their existing database. So it's kind of a merging of classic CRM world that you would normally deploy at a mortgage company with some of the partnerships that most of us in the room would know and adding this component to it, to make it a much deeper and richer connection. So the way we've looked at it, we've looked at it in a world of personal finance apps where you have Min and Nerd wallet and several others in that space, we think that using mortgage of the tip of the spear to acquire customers and providing same type of feature and functions as some of those other personal finance apps, we can do that, you can using our mortgage database of clients as well as a new customer acquisition tool via social media and other obvious means of marketing to acquire those customers. But of course then eventually cross sell them additional products over time.

Heidi Patalano (07:36):

Right. Absolutely. Can you talk about like how we in the prior conversation we talked about servicers not always having, a really stellar reputation, sub servicers actually more so than services themselves. So how do you kind of ensure that great service that will then, kind of make that borrower want to come back?

Steve Majerus (08:03):

Yeah, I think it is a challenge because the sub servicing space, which we use a subservicer. Our standards typically will probably go further in terms of our expectations of a client experience and how our clients get handled versus what they're normally used to. And I think some of the enhancements that we made, like build in our own mortgage payment portal, which is our own IP, creates a better experience even if it's a front end to tie into the sub servicing system. So better look and feel better interaction easier, look up those type, those types of things that are normal functions in a payment cycle. But then the other thing is adding some of these, if you want to track your credit, if you want to budget for something, if you want to check your home valuation, these are other elements that we can reimagine the payment experience or retention experience or servicing experience and have us all of this in one place.

(09:03)

Because the more value you can create there around the home or otherwise that provides that stickiness over time. And of course therefore you're not just going there for a payment or you're getting frustrated by the customer service rep that's up there, the line, there's other things that you can avail yourself to as a client that is making you either more financially literate, more aware about your, your particular financial condition. We are cross-selling our helo product to our clients in that experience as well. So there's other ways to leverage that experience besides just looking at it as a servicing payment portal. And I think we're our expansion of that. We're already in early stages. We're already seeing a significant pickup in customer satisfaction because of that.

Heidi Patalano (09:56):

Yeah, that's really interesting. I we really wanna provide a borrower with everything they need all in one place. I mean, it kind of fits with the general, like one stop shop kind of thing. And we were talking about ease of use in making things extremely convenient. One thing I mentioned when we opened the conference is that, our research finds that, borrowers expect every transaction to be as easy as ordering delivery food. I know I do. Or are getting an Uber, you get an update, they're around the block, they're one minute away, put on your mask, all of those things. So Dan, can you talk about Diana, I'm sorry. Pardon? Can you talk about how you're kind of speaking to that moment in that need that what the client's demand now?

Diane Mulhall (10:47):

I think it's also, it's not just what Fin Lock's doing there is when I worked for a lender prior to joining Fin Locker, we worked with Strat Moore and they are very much having the about NPS scores and which, so just simple things like all, like even if you are just not doing any tech whatsoever, a simple thing of notifying your borrower is in advance about the documents that they need to be for their application can bring up your NPS score amazingly. And that should be just entry levels, to be able to do that. And it seems so simple, but that's what really does move the needle for borrowers. Of course, as it's been mentioned, I think in pretty much every session over the last few days, repeatedly asking for documents is like huge pain point, and that will drop your MP score down a lot lower too.

Heidi Patalano (11:47):

Right.

Diane Mulhall (11:48):

But, using a personal financial management app like Fin Locker, that will simplify the process just because they can upload their documents, transfer those documents to their originator, and then can go into the originator's OS, minimizes all those asking for documents again cuz it's just securely transferred.

Heidi Patalano (12:15):

Right. It's all there.

Steve Majerus (12:17):

Yeah. Eventually, I think from lender's perspective is, and you see this in, in some personal finance app partnerships today, where the concept of a pre-filled app is kind of the next holy grail step for everybody in leveraging that data that Diane's talking about. I have a sister Diane, so part, like but, if you can lower the friction in terms of the application, say essentially press this button, all of the data that you have in the system will prefill the url for example, cuz you're ready to transact, you take an application process to, single digit minutes to complete versus a half hour, 45 minutes and people getting frustrated and stuck at certain parts. I think you provide a lot of value in that and then it using either asset or other data as well to be able to provide a credit decision, if a company like ours thinking about delivering things in real time to your example about the expectation's been set, we're all living in, some form or fashion of ordering on Amazon and expecting things to happen fairly quickly or we know that's the standard for consumer behavior and otherwise, I know I pitched a fit because the plane didn't have wifi for me on the way out here.

(13:41)

It's a 45 minute flight from San Diego and I still couldn't stand it. But, that's the world we live in and we're conditioned to be like that. And so where our, we took the position of if we could deliver something like that in a financial transaction, we should. If we can provide value because of that, we will. And I think we've been able to see, again, early stage start to see this ecosystem where we can control the consumer a little bit more as a defensive strategy to keep them away from the personal finance apps because that space is growing exponentially. Every year the average person in this room in America has two and a half personal finance apps on their phone today. So if we can keep them in our ecosystem and provide the same features and benefits in similar fashion, meaning smooth, transparent, etc, set secure, then I think we, we have a better chance at scaling, but also retaining clients at a much higher rate.

Heidi Patalano (14:43):

Right. That was gonna be one of my other questions is just like, how do you cut through all of these different personal finance apps? I mean, I know for me, I signed up for one call, well, should I even name it? I don't wanna say actually, but when I forgot about it, it's buried in my apps on the third tab over and I went to open it again and it asked me for a login and I was like, oh, forget it, yeah, forget it. I'm not going back into that. So it must be very difficult. So this is about retaining people once you get them in, but it's very hard to cut through the noise.

Steve Majerus (15:17):

It's a similar example with we have incredibly high for, we have distributed retail by and large at our company. So branches, loan officers and branches all over in several states. And we have high adoption rate of our loan officers using our app either web or mobile to have consumers apply for mortgages. Probably 75% of our clients apply that way now. The issue is the consumer uses that app and then the transactions over, guess what? It dies and collects dust, right? We think that combining these two aspects where we've got personal finance, etcetera, as well as application process and features and benefits, I can give you a real life example. When we provide monthly alerts on credit refresh, I got one a couple days ago on our app we look at the open rate again for the consumers, like, oh, my credit score went up or down, they go back into the app and there's a new offer for them, or there's an alert about what the mortgage market has done, or some informational financial literacy, something that helps them engage much more regularly.

(16:34)

And so we know that those types of alerts, a they work they get people typically to take an action and I would dare say much more engagement consistently than the typical CRM utilization that we see from vendors that, like I said, we all know. So again, it's early stage, but we like where we see so far.

Heidi Patalano (17:00):

Right. Coz it's personalized, it's about the actual user. And I mean, I totally go for that when it's like your credit score is in this month I check it, thankfully it hasn't changed too much, but it does pull me in. Yeah. And so I think that's really smart in terms of actually keeping people engaged with your, cuz we can turn off the push notifications, we can unsubscribe, unsubscribe, unsubscribe, but something like that will keep someone.

Steve Majerus (17:27):

Think, kind of keeping it on the mortgage theme. Think about getting an alert that your neighbors sold their house for $200,000 more than yours. You would want to know that. Another way to easily engage. They do, they engage when we send them those alerts. So again, there's new ways of reimagining the engagement and retention process for lifetime value of clients by thinking about ways that personal finance apps or other segments of personal finance apply these things versus just the typical mortgage mindset of a silo in one dimensional way, and it makes it, I think, much more analogous to the rest of the consumer lending market as opposed to just this one transaction.

Heidi Patalano (18:14):

Right. That's really interesting. I would love to know that kind of thing. Like what did my neighbour's home sell for? Absolutely. I need, it's to know it's available. Right. So Diana, when we talked about customer permission data what are some ways that you see in the future where that might be going, where you could really use data to go further with this kind of idea of personalized outreach and engagement?

Diane Mulhall (18:43):

Well, I mean the young, like Gen Z particularly, they're already willing to give up a lot of their personal information to get personalized experiences. Right. And there's numerous studies about that. So providing this in a safe and secure environment where they can electro enroll in credit electro enroll their accounts and everything that then they're saying, Yes, I'm doing this so that you are going to give me what I want, which is that personal experience so that you are not just sending me, random offers that don't hit me.

Heidi Patalano (19:25):

Fighting, yeah!

Diane Mulhall (19:26):

Yeah. And so that's what they're prepared to do, if they're prepared to give up their information for that. And I think, Amazon's got all their recommendation surveys. Netflix is doing, recommendations on what people are watching. So people are expecting that just like the Amazon effect with the actual completion of a mortgage, the actual personalization is expected too.

Heidi Patalano (19:53):

Right. That also there's some kind of trust that automatically happens if it's like, I have your information, I can tell you what you need. There's more of a likelihood that someone will say, Oh, you, like, you've taken this and I believe you actually, because they can see that it's based off of actual information that came from them.

Steve Majerus (20:17):

I think. A lot of us, Sorry, go ahead.

Diane Mulhall (20:19):

I was gonna say, it also makes it really so much easier for the loan originator too to do their annual reviews every year. if you've got, consumer using the outlets like, rather than calling them going, Hey, how are you doing? What's happened in your life since you last that? It's like, no, you can tell 'em to open that and really have a conversation about where their life is, what their data is, where their equity is their net worth, the homes that are for sale. And then put that in context of what has happened in their home, really provide advice with them.

Heidi Patalano (20:59):

Yeah. I think that's really powerful to people. And it kind of gives you an in that's more powerful, especially, if you're the first person there telling them about what they may need, they're more likely to stick with you. Rather than to go, okay, well now I'm gonna ask.

Steve Majerus (21:16):

Well, now the availability of the technology and data and, I'm probably the oldest person in the room, but a lot of people I know have, have traditionally gotten their mortgages or other loans from a traditional bank. And then every time they go back to that bank, they've been banking there 27 years, and then they wanna get a mortgage or refined by a new house. And it is literally starting all over as if they have no history with that bank. And people now know that you don't have to put up with that. You can actually use the information and data that you have with other areas or other parties you've done business with and actually streamline the process because of that. Meaning like you're not starting over. The bank should know you because you've been there 27 years, but they treat you exactly like anybody else off the street.

(22:08)

There's no advantage to it in terms of the process because the friction in the process is what makes people hesitate. When you're talking about Gen Z and millennials, you're right, they wil dive in on authenticating bank accounts and everything else. And let's go, let's get it done. But we have this thing called experience loyalty, experience will be based on the loyalty will be based on the experience they had with you. And so if you can tie those things together along with education and financial literacy content, so you create an environment for first time home buyers in which they're confident in moving forward, confidence is the key and education is the bridge to get there. You are going to create this new, given the demographics are so large, that's such a massive home buying demographic that the more, if you can get them over their hesitancy through education and financial literacy content, they will mo more likely because you're the source of that content, more likely transact with you over time. And that could be done at an individual loan officer level in their market or an enterprise level through social media and larger platforms like some of ours.

Heidi Patalano (23:26):

Right. Yeah, that's interesting because, we were hearing from someone in Experian yesterday who said there's a huge part of the public that just don't think that they can actually get a loan for a home. They don't even know that they self disqualify. That was the term. And I think that's really interesting that, you gotta reach those people that aren't even aware that they could actually do this.

Diane Mulhall (23:53):

And that's just like, especially the last few years, loan officers have just not had the time to just nurture someone who's six 18 months, let alone 24 months, 36 months off from getting a mortgage. Yes, you can get someone off social media, but they could come to you with all states of mortgage readiness. They could have a low credit score or high DTA, they might even know what their DTA is. But, if you can work, let sort of, an app kind of nurture them for you, show them what to do. That's what sort of a private label flocker can do, keep you top of mind. But also do the nurturing for you so that you can then just focus on those mortgage ready clients. You can nurture someone for 36 months, fine.

Heidi Patalano (24:47):

Right. And this is the time to do it. Because, we were, the refi booms over , purchases are kind of, they're in there's fewer. So it's the time to nurture those people that down the line will be, ready finally. Well if there are any questions I can open that up, but I know, everyone's at the end of the day, so everyone , everyone's kinda like cruising. So I do love to ask the forward looking questions about what you see coming down the line and also just in social media too, actually kind of bouncing around a little bit. But I've been really excited about these conversations about TikTok and, and all of the possibility in reaching people that way and kind of building trust there. So Steve, maybe you could talk about what your company has done with that.

Steve Majerus (25:46):

Yeah, we've both in terms of recruiting people, but also just building awareness. We have a consumer direct brand called Loan life.com. And not only the Synergy one team, but we are doing a ton of test and learning. consistency is key to don't be afraid to try a lot. Because most of it's gonna fail, but you are gonna learn along the way. The great thing about social media is for the most part, people forget about it 30 seconds later anyway. So if something's bad it's usually can be good if in a strange way. But we do see we're building audiences around first time home buyer strategies and things like that. In kind of an irreverent funny way of looking at finance and introducing the talk topic of home buying.

(26:35)

In a long view type of way, a relationship type of way before we start to talk about transactional focus. And like, how are we gonna make a commission that type of thing. So have to be patient about that, have to be consistent about it. But there's a lot to be learned because the engagement that we're seeing in some there, we know there, it's not, it's certainly not complete by any stretch of the imagination, but the type of engagement that we're seen as a result of those things, both at the individual loan officer level and at the brand level, if you will, creates awareness, creates trust over time and eventually, usable database that you can leverage based on what you've built. But again, it takes a lot of focus and it's frustrating at times, but I, think given, oversimplified, that's where the eyeballs are, that's where people are getting a lot of their information. So I think we've been able to embrace it, make it work for us for the time being. We'll see over time how it plays out, but I think a lot of people are thinking about this, but they stop there and only think about it. They don't just take that extra step, do the homework, and, and go do it.

Heidi Patalano (27:51):

Yeah. I really love that you can be irreverent with these videos that you have to be authentic, like they were talking about also in the last section.

Steve Majerus (27:59):

I hate, that word authentic, that gets thrown around a lot. We, I like approachable just like, because it's not the disaster that your parents might have lived through or something like that. This is just an approachable way that is rational, insane, and I think adds credibility to opening people's eyes to the possibility of home buying or any type of financial transaction around that way and the time will tell. It's gonna take a while, but it's working for us, I can tell you that.

Heidi Patalano (28:32):

That's wonderful, and Diane, any parting thoughts on what you see coming down the line?

Diane Mulhall (28:37):

Yeah, looking into the crystal ball, one of the things Fin Lock is really looking forward to is that we are aiming for, to just provide the tools so that a consumer can present themselves to their bank, their mortgage lender, completely verified. We're partnering with our gal who's here as well. So they're gonna be providing our verification services and we've already got credit through TransUnion, and obviously as their accounts, which provides the assets and liability. Then their identity is through their social security number, which is already tied to their app. So yeah, with all of these, they can present themselves completely verified. So, they can go and go, Okay, this is who I am. It's not just, for a mortgage, it could be for any type of transaction. Yeah. So they can be walking around with power in their pocket.

Heidi Patalano (29:37):

Yeah. The future, very exciting. All right, well, thank you both for your time. It was so great to have you here and thank you all for joining us today. Thank

Steve Majerus (29:46):

You. Thank you.