A bigger team equals better service
Individual brokers/agents are great and there is nothing wrong with individual Brokers/Agents working in the mortgage market, but how does it add up to the increasing service that needs to be provided to borrowers? I started out as an individual Broker/Agent, always working hard on the new deal coming in and hoping my current clients I helped previously would call me to get ahold of me if there was anything wrong. Consequently, needing immediate service performed on their past mortgage. This was assuming my past clients knew they needed the service that was available.
Nevertheless, as I performed outstanding service, and my client base grew it became very apparent that I would need a team. I could not give the current clients and new clients coming in the same service I wanted to give them. I felt like the typical cell phone company, ignoring the client base that helped them gain market share, and only offering better services to the new clients coming through the door. I did not want this.
Clients don’t know what they don’t know
Clients don’t know what services they needed. Without a doubt, I directed my previous clients to simply renew with their current company, and that was the best solution at the time due to other requests. They were never offered yearly reviews, and callouts to let them know about new services or better paths to pay down their mortgage. If they called before renewal I would simply react by doing my brokering activities to help them obtain a better rate.
I began wondering, what would it be like to be proactive.
What would happen if I built a team to help all my clients? Giving them sound service and advice before they renewed, touching base with them throughout the year, and knowing that a team could respond to their immediate request. Helping them immediately with their requests before they received the external factors that would make them call me. I don’t know how other individual Brokers/Agents do it, and quite frankly, I truly believe they do not.
Being more proactive than reactive
Nevertheless, in an effort to service my clients, I wanted a proactive model. I wanted all clients to be contacted and know their options. Furthermore, it truly dismayed me throughout my career when a client would say ” I wish I knew that option sooner”. Many times it was too late. The client did not get a yearly review and their credit decreased or other factors affected them borrowing against their home.
I wanted to contact them sooner before financial changes happened, as it would impact how they could use their equity. To realize this goal, and offer outstanding advice and service a team was needed. A team that works together to help every client before, and after performing their mortgage. Obviously, I would still be around to help with more difficult cases but being able to get ahold of a borrower BEFORE things change has always been at the forefront of my mind.
Introducing Mortgage Suite
This is no fly-by-night operation. This is a company dedicated to integral training and servicing clients. We make sure teammates hired know the value of communication and the unspoken rule of invaluable customer service. If there are options to be had, we update our customers. Exit strategies and yearly reviews are performed. There is always someone at the other end of the phone to answer and get borrowers the answers they need immediately.
A website has been created to help clients understand the changing market that mortgage borrowing has grown to become. Servicing and education are at the backbone of Mortgage Suite. New agents hired on are supervised and taught to give proper understandable answers and servicing borrowers is never a second thought. I believe the market is calling for better service and understanding of mortgage borrowing, and Mortgage Suite along with Duncan Wilson is here to perform it.
Ask Yourself
Finally, how many times are you told by your individual Broker/Agent just to renew because you have the best rate? Was there proof given at that time? Did they do their work to show you that in fact, it was best? Or were you told this only due to the fact that your individual broker/agent is experiencing service overload? Was your decline truly a proper decline, and were you provided proof?
