The Proven New Strategy for Borrower Retention

Driving better results from your database can be the key to your success. And a simple, manageable shift in borrower retention strategy can maximize this valuable asset. This new strategy is focused on building relationships based on relevant timing of customer contact.

The Asset

You have built and maintained your database of customers and prospects over time. You’ve accessed it, but have you maximized your return on this asset?

Typical Relationship Building

Many Loan Officers try to build a relationship based on information they have entered into your CRM system. Often that is limited to an annual birthday card, holiday greeting, and perhaps a quarterly newsletter or occasional affinity offering.

As positive as those touch points might be, your customers and prospects have no need to interact with a Loan Officer unless they have a change in life that impacts their finances, such as a move. This is a strategy based on hope. A hope that the timing of the contact happens to coincide with a triggering event.

And, although they have their place, most of these efforts fall into the category of irrelevant timing. Sometimes they can even have a negative effect, feeling as disingenuous as, “Hi, just calling to check in.”

Typical Timing of Personal Customer Contact

Many Loan Officers have been trained to mine their list based on industry standards. For example, if armed with the information that, on average, people move every 3½-years, an LO could put a tickler into your CRM to call a borrower three years after closing.

Aware of the statistical likelihood that their customer would list their home for sale in 6 months, the LO would make contact, hoping to rekindle the relationship and be in position for the new lending opportunity.

Sometimes this strategy works, but often the customer isn’t moving in 3.5 years. Just like they don’t have 1.9 children. In other words, the timing wasn’t relevant to the customer.

Refinancing a home would be an example of more relevant timing. “Hi, rates are lower and I can reduce your monthly payments.” When it comes to saving money, timing is almost always relevant.

However, purchasing a new home and refinancing a current home just represent part of the opportunity from the 11 average mortgage related transactions in a borrower’s life: 

1. 1^st Purchase
2. Cash-out Refi
3. 2^nd Purchase
4. Rate & Term Refi
5. HELOC
6. 3^rd Purchase
7. Investment Property
8. Cash-out Refi
9. Summer Home Purchase
10. Cash-out Refi
11. Reverse Mortgage

To get more than your fair share of these transactions, you must build a solid relationship with each individual customer. Making your company and LO the comfortable choice for their borrowing needs.

Building a Relationship Based on Relevant Timing of Customer Contact

Relevant timing is making contact when the customer or prospect needs their next loan.

This requires a solution that alerts your Loan Officers when the customer is ready to borrow. Success rates climb when your LOs make contact when your customer’s behavior indicates they are buying another house, they are in need of funds, or if they have made mortgage inquiries elsewhere.

With alerts, instead of waiting for customers to contact your company – which they might not do – your Loan Officer can anticipate the customer’s need and proactively approach them. This positions your LO and company as an established provider stepping up to help when needed, increasing closing ratios exponentially.

This is relationship building at its best. The borrower feels like your Loan Officer is truly listening to them because your LO is contacting them with relevant timing. This creates an experience for the borrower that they appreciate, positioning your company for their future business.

Relevant Timing

On average, 2-3% of your database is ready to borrow every month. Imagine being able to identify these borrowers at the moment they need a loan. Your database would become a steady stream of quality leads that results in deals done.

Although select alert capabilities have been around for a while, only one system offers an all-in-one alert system that easily integrates into the tools – such as your CRM – you are already using: Sales Boomerang. This fully automated borrower intelligence software tells lenders when a prospect or past customer is ready for a loan, triggering your LO to reach out at the right time, building a relationship on the foundation of relevant timing.

The Bottom Line

Faced with the harsh reality that 85% of your active borrowers will leave you every year and that mortgage borrower acquisition can cost five times as much as retention, properly nurturing the customers and prospects in your database becomes essential to your success. 

The relevant timing strategy has been proven by Sales Boomerang with over 2,133,320 notifications delivered in 3 years resulting in clients recapturing over $15 billion in originations.

Additional Positive Impact

When a customer is satisfied, they are more likely to bring word-of-mouth referrals. By building customer relationships based on relevant timing, not only are you increasing borrower retention, but you are also developing a highly cost-efficient way of adding new customers to your borrower database asset.

Take Action

Significantly improve your borrower retention. Contact Sales Boomerang today. “Look at the opportunity cost you have by not having Sales Boomerang. Last year we closed over $72M in loans that we would have lost from not having Sale Boomerang.” – Stephen Barton, Eustis Mortgage.