Technology won’t replace the loan officer, but the loan officer who’s using technology will replace the one who isn’t. We know that thanks to data from Fannie Mae [1]: 72 percent of people prefer to fill out a mortgage application online and 65 percent prefer to have a human explain terms and answer questions. In other words, people want the convenience of tech and the trust of human relationships.
Loan officers should want the same thing. By tapping into the right technology, loan officers can achieve what’s called “hyper-relevance [2]:” the ability to become a trusted advisor by delivering the right message at the right time to the right person via the right channel. The ability, in other words, to win customers for life. Here’s how.
Hyper-Relevance: Beyond Personalization
The term “hyper-relevance” was coined by Accenture to describe the “always-on” attitude companies should take when engaging with customers. And it’s not just an update of “personalization.” Personalization is sending a customer emails on a topic they’ve expressed interest in. Hyper-relevance is deciding what to send based on customers’ life events. Personalization is including a customer’s name in an email. Hyper-relevance is sending information about home equity loans when their oldest child is a senior in high school and they’re likely thinking about how to fund college. When you achieve hyper-relevance, you’re more than a mortgage lender; you become a valued and valuable partner.
Enabling Hyper-Relevance and Humanizing the Customer Journey
You can’t achieve hyper-relevance without gathering a lot of data about your customers’ lives. But you also can’t get there with data alone. To truly humanize your customer journey, you have to collect data on an ongoing basis, share it across your organization, and continually parse it. That’s a tall order – in fact, it’s pretty much impossible without the right technology.
But the right software can break down silos between sales and marketing (and other departments) by providing a single home for all relevant data – from email clicks to in-person conversations – and providing a simple way to funnel that data into hyper-relevant communications.
To make that happen in your organization, it’s essential to get these three things right:
- Get buy-in from leadership - Without alignment at the top, efforts to coordinate among departments almost always fall short.
- Choose a tech solution designed for the mortgage industry - If you don’t, the setup required to achieve the operational efficiencies that will really move the needle will take too long.
- Move past transactional thinking - The most valuable customers are those who return again and again – for life. Use the power of hyper-relevance to become a valued advisor even when you have nothing to sell.
Better Tech, Better Relationships
Technology has the power to make mortgage lenders even better at what they do: build and nurture personal relationships with potential homebuyers. Choosing tech solutions that facilitate this process will enable relationship-building at scale.