The pandemic has changed a lot in the loan servicing world – from increasing the role of digital transaction in the sales cycle to fielding increased call volume from loan holders – the requirements for managing in the mortgage servicing business today has changed. It is critical that loan servicers know homeowners and clients inside and out. They must be buttoned up on compliance, offer automated product solutions, be able to smoothly onboard new customers and empathetically support stressed ones. At this stage, adaptability is table stakes.
The most precise, efficient, highly tuned organization can quickly fail if they’re not adaptable. Disruptions happen, small and large. And the Covid-19 pandemic illustrates just how significant and far-reaching these changes can be. It comes down to preparedness and adaptability. As stated in this article from McKinsey & Company, “Leaders worldwide recognize driving business-to-business (B2B) revenue growth will require significant reskilling among their teams. Of more than 400 leaders surveyed, 55 percent said only about half of their sales force [including customer service] has the required capabilities. B2Bs with the fastest rates of revenue growth are approaching customers sooner and with a more consultative mindset. Approximately 85 percent of leaders said they believe solution selling will be a core sales capability, requiring strong product knowledge and solution design as well as account-planning skills.”
Our industry will thrive by introducing agility into the business process. The Covid-19 pandemic put this to the test. As the situation progressed, from the economic impacts through the introduction of the CARES Act, the forbearance wave, and now the Great Resignation, the one constant the industry must rely on is the value of well trained, highly knowledgeable, and success-driven people.
At the first sign of any disruption, it’s critical loan servicers adapt to maintain the same levels of service and diligence. As interest rates climb and fewer mortgage applications are flowing, it is important that your people are ready for increased customer inquiries and prepared with the right answers. We don’t want to give customers yet another thing to worry about.
Cross Training for Operational Readiness
When customer inquiry volume spikes, is your team prepared to absorb them? A loan servicer’s customer care team acts as an extension of the originator. During challenging times, it’s even more critical that we handle customer calls in a timely fashion. It means flexibility not only with process and procedure, but with operational capacity.
Training is critical to enable support staff to be responsive and helpful. At the onset of the pandemic, customer service training extended beyond delivering the most accurate, up-to-date information on mortgage relief. Cross-training was introduced to cover a wider range of customer service topics and procedures, enabling staff to jump into default call centers during times of high demand, reducing wait times while continuing to deliver servicing excellence.
In a customer centric model, the support team should be kept up to date with new scripts and training that is relevant to trends in the marketplace. For example, do they have scripts focused on addressing questions related to increased interest rates? Are they prepared to handle questions from homeowners who have lost their jobs due to either layoffs or The Great Resignation? Are they prepared to continue to support the stresses that persist around Covid-19?
Customer Care at LoanCareCenter
Whether it’s refinancing requests or managing a forbearance plan, both are stressful experiences for the homeowner. For the servicer, it’s a complex process with no room for error. At LoanCare, our priority is providing a smooth customer experience while maintaining world-class efficiency and accuracy for clients. During Covid-19, we were able to achieve this through updated training and technological efficiencies.
For customer care staff, we developed custom scripts aimed at understanding each homeowner situation. This helped us find the best possible solution for every circumstance. Our innovation team assisted by developing technological efficiencies, including automated processes to quickly perform loan modification calculations and batch-processing programs for forbearance filings. The result: the right training and tools for people on both sides of the inquiry, enabling our team to process more than 7,000 loss mitigation workouts per month.
Contact us for more information on how we have built our Customer Care team.
