Mortgage Technology and the Human Touch

MBA (7/29/2008 ) Palaparty, Vijay
It's a time-tested adage: for high tech to succeed, it still requires "high-touch." For lenders, the customer relationship management is more important than ever, despite increased automation and technology developments, according to Don Kracl, president of Mortech Inc., Lincoln, Neb.

“Even though consumers are more educated than they were in the past, there is a gap between what they know and what they think they know,” Kracl said. “If a company thinks it can turn on automated rate services and the consumer will find them, interacting without a human element, they are hugely mistaken.”
Kracl said the quicker loan officers contact consumers, the more likely they can turn those prospective consumers into borrowers. “Consumers want contact and lenders can use some technology tools to create efficiencies in that process,” Kracl said.

Mortech offers pricing rate notification, prospect management tools, custom rate sheets and loan product eligibility and guidelines services. Its web-based software, Marksman, gives lenders ability to automate and manage loan processes and manage sales cycles.

“Consumers are getting smarter in all areas of business,” Kracl said. “It’s true of the mortgage business too. Regardless of which lead aggregator a lender uses, the key is to reaching the consumer with believable results. Consumers are smart enough to spot misinformation.”

Kracl suggested lenders provide real, actual pricing to borrowers, establishing a personal relationship while gaining their trust. “It has the best rate of converting prospects into borrowers,” he said.

Mortech’s relationship with LendingTree, Charlotte, N.C., recently experienced a 450 percent increase in its lender network customer base.

“Leads go into LendingTree and are then distributed out,” Kracl said. “When borrowers come to LendingTree, we match their application with one of our lenders, matching their specific criteria. We then notify the loan officer and management of the loan officer so that they will be able to contact the consumer as soon as possible.”

“The LendingTree partnership focuses on how to converge processes into customers,” Kracl added. “In the past two years, we’ve changed our focus to offer more automated processes and focus on creating efficiencies, while also keeping the personal aspect of customer relationship management.”

Mortech also provides eligibility and investor guidelines that are digitally integrated into the results it delivers to its customers and subsequent borrowers.

“Some of the information doesn’t translate well,” Kracl said. “Furthermore, underwriters need guidelines in a narrative form but an originator would perhaps only want to know whether they can originate or a loan or not within fewer parameters.”

Mortech’s Pure Eligibility component provides eligibility and investor guidelines. “We see it as a filtered kind of process,” Kracl said.