After a long day, my husband Mike and I like to sit in our backyard — either by a fire or in a hot tub — to recount our day. Since we live in a very rural area, we are often serenaded by the surrounding wildlife. Coyotes yip in the field across from us, a deer calls to her fawn, and we’ve even heard a mountain lion caterwauling for its mate. But most notable are two owls that like to converse back and forth. One sits in a tree to the west of our property and the other on our roof. We know they are looking right at us, but we can’t see them as clearly as they can see us. The owl’s extraordinary night vision illuminates what humans can’t see without the aid of technology.
That’s the point and purpose of this month’s InFocus article. Impactful business decisions are based on good information. When leaders can “see” their company performance through a magnified lens, informed decisions that will positively impact their organizations are made. Mortgage lending executives should always be seeking a 360-degree view of their business. Even with all the new technology available today, mortgage lenders must be willing to take a deeper look at the data to uncover the real insights that can help move a company forward. In “Amplify Your Vision to Illuminate Business Opportunities and Risks,” Senior Partner Nicole Yung discusses what it takes to make sense of the data lenders have at their disposal and what additional information they need to consistently make informed decisions that advance the success of their organizations.
Once you have access to these deeper insights, use them to enact effective change. Customer Experience Director Mike Seminari shows lenders how to take the feedback we’re gleaning from our MortgageCX surveys to exceed expectations and drive word-of-mouth referrals from customers. In his latest Customer Experience Tip, Mike explains that the key to delighting borrowers is to operate in the world of the unexpected. Check out “An LO’s Guide to Creating Unexpected Delight for Borrowers” for tips on how to deliver unanticipated experiences that produce raving fans.
Thank you for joining us for the April Insights Report. STRATMOR provides a wide range of advisory services to facilitate, optimize and address the challenges lenders are facing today, including strategy design and implementation, process review and improvement, transferring servicing assets, optimizing your customer experience initiatives to get more business, technology procurement and implementation, M&A strategic options, and much more. STRATMOR’s advisory team is available now to discuss these services for 2024. Please contact us directly to learn more.
There’s a lot of pain in the mortgage industry right now: Rising costs per loan, low inventory and high rates are resulting in fewer loans, and we’re all still hoping that rumored refinance boom is right around the corner. Lenders who take the time to delve deeper into the data available to them will have a clearer picture of the information that can help develop strategies to manage these and future obstacles.
Borrowers expect a certain level of service, and we must exceed that level if we hope to get word-of-mouth referrals. Our question this month: What does it take to exceed expectations and delight borrowers in 2024?
This virtual workshop provides a unique forum for Consumer Direct production and marketing executives to discuss the economic and performance metrics driving Consumer Direct lending in today’s environment.
Origination costs are at an all-time high. Given that sales costs will continue to be the largest component of retail origination costs, what can be done to manage this beast?
Understanding the key characteristics of the Expense Management Branch (EMB) and comparing the key performance metrics between it and the corporate branch model is essential to identifying which is best for your organization.
Secret shopping is the best way for lenders to remove the disconnection between perception and reality and pave the way for meaningful improvements in customer experience.
This month, I sat down with fellow STRATMOR Principal Jennifer Fortier to wade into the murky waters of process improvement. In this exchange, Jennifer and I explore the benefits of regular process reviews and why the path to process improvement requires a combination of things to be effective. We also look at the pitfalls that can derail sustainment of new processes and how to overcome them.
Imagine a world where mortgage technology providers are succinctly aligned with the lenders they serve … In this article, We unpack the key areas of disconnect between mortgage lenders and vendors that we’ve heard, outline what STRATMOR suggests to both lenders and their technology partners and share examples of how a few tech providers have already taken STRATMOR’s guidance to heart.
I find myself thinking about Maslow’s hierarchy these days when pondering the state of the mortgage industry. What would Maslow say if he were to create a similar hierarchy to define the different levels of needs for mortgage lenders today?
Feel free to reach out with any questions or needs we might be able to help with.
