What is CRM, and How Can Mortgage Brokers Benefit from It

Mortgage customer relationship management (CRM) software is designed to help mortgage professionals run their front-end operations more efficiently and effectively. It uses the principles of CRM to make acquiring and, more importantly, retaining customers both easier and more cost-effective, resulting in higher profits and fewer headaches.

At the highest level, CRM itself is a concept that describes a set of best practices designed to improve customer interactions and long-term customer relationships. While transactional selling was once the norm, businesses today understand that maintaining an existing customer is far more efficient than acquiring a new one, and lifetime value is what really matters. CRM as a practice aims to use customer data to drive and improve long-term customer relationships, and CRM software is designed to enable that goal through technology.  

CRM software centralizes and interlinks all of a company’s customer-facing tasks so that no interaction is ever in isolation, and the valuable information from each customer touch can be collected and used to improve the next one. Despite the emergence of online tools that enable home buyers to shop for loans from home, the mortgage industry is still very much people-driven. Customer relationship management – as software and as a practice – has a lot to offer brokers looking to establish and strengthen the long-term relationships that drive success.

 

What Can Mortgage Brokers do with CRM Software?

Mortgage brokers operate in a non-traditional sales environment in that they work for the client, but are paid by the lender. Despite that unique arrangement, mortgage brokers can benefit from CRM software in all the same ways traditional sales organizations do – including turning more leads into clients, maximizing return business, and boosting efficiency in everything from sales to marketing to administration, and beyond. 

 

Create Stronger Long-Term Relationships and Boost Word-of-Mouth Referral

While the average homeowner may only buy two or three homes in their entire lifetime, the initial purchase isn’t the only time a broker comes in handy. With each renewal, the opportunity exists for a broker to find the borrower a better deal, making return business a key to maintaining a healthy client base. 

Long-term relationships are also crucial for brokers because they drive word-of-mouth referrals, and all successful brokers know that praise from a happy client is the most effective and cost-efficient marketing tool available. 

Customer relationship management software enables the long-term relationships that generate word-of-mouth referrals and return business by making it easier for brokers to both keep track of their clients and make more regular, yet unintrusive, contact.

With a CRM, all of the most important information on each client and prospect – from renewal dates to birthdays and anniversaries – can be stored and easily accessed in a centralized database. Follow-ups and contacts can be automated to ensure a connection is always maintained, even during the years-long stretches between renewals and purchases. 

 

Save Time by Automating Almost Everything

A good mortgage CRM doesn’t only automate ongoing client communications; it automates almost all of the most time-consuming and repetitive tasks brokers handle on a daily basis. Lead accounts automatically update to reflect the vital information from each new contact, greatly reducing the time it takes to perform thorough lead management. Leads can also be automatically recategorized by certain events like link clicks, form submissions, and more, ensuring brokers always have an accurate understanding of where each lead is in their buying journey.

Other common tasks that can be automated include scheduling and calendar updates, outgoing marketing campaigns, daily calling, report generation, and much more. Certain CRMs, like CRMDialer, also offer Zapier integration, enabling complex workflows across multiple platforms like loan origination software, Microsoft Office, and thousands of other tools to be integrated and automated, recapturing lost time and enabling brokers to do more with their workdays. 

 

Minimize or Eliminate Paper

One enormous benefit of adopting a CRM is that it enables not only the centralization, but also the secure digitization and storage of all client documents. From representation agreements to applications to releases, most mortgage brokers are buried in paper. All that paper needs to be maintained for years due to mandated recordkeeping requirements. 

A good CRM equipped with eSignature functionality enables brokers to go completely digital with all of their most common forms, maximizing convenience for everyone involved and minimizing storage needs. Clients no longer need to worry about printing or scanning, and brokers save time in document handling and eliminate the need for walls full of filing cabinets, potentially even reducing monthly office space costs. 

 

The full list of benefits a good CRM system can offer brokers is too long for any one article, but to maximize those benefits, it’s important that brokers choose the right platform. CRMDialer is the mortgage industry’s top customer relationship management software and the go-to choice for brokers looking to gain a technological edge on the competition. With advanced lead management, system-wide automation, unlimited document storage, Zapier integration, a built-in power dialer, and tools covering everything from email marketing to billing to web analytics, CRMDialer provides everything brokers need to operate more efficiently, minimize waste, and provide a better client experience. 

To see all the benefits the platform has to offer in action, start your no-commitment 14-day free trial and put CRMDialer to work at your mortgage brokerage today!