Customer relationship management tools could be the answer for lenders needing automated tools that boost marketing, increase sales productivity and help maintain regulatory compliance.
On March 18, Mortgage Daily advertiser Ellie Mae Inc. unveiled Encompass CRM, the company’s standalone customer relationship management tool that can integrate with its Encompass platform.
Formerly called MortgageCEO, an asset Ellie acquired from ARG Interactive LLC, Encompass CRM provides a scalable suite of automated tools for sales and marketing tasks led by lenders, loan originators and business managers.
“Mortgage lenders are scrambling to make the transition from a refinance to a purchase market, but many do not necessarily have a specific plan of how to get there,” Ellie Chief Operating Officer and President Jonathon Corr said. “Advanced CRM and automated marketing tools are no longer nice to have, but rather, are a necessity to be a competitive and to thrive.”
According to Ellie’s press release, Encompass CRM’s lead-to-loan conversion process eliminates the multiple systems update necessity, which can create data inconsistency and cause compliance and audit issues for lenders. If an audit or complaint does occur, Ellie’s CRM can assist lenders with sales and marketing compliance reviews.
Originators can use Encompass CRM to create and schedule marketing campaigns to prospective buyers, current customers and referrals while business managers can use the CRM for sales forecasting, monitoring marketing campaigns, and checking individual and branch performance affectivity.
California-based OptifiNow argued, in a March 5 statement, that current CRM products were not closing the gap between lead generation and conversions because they did not address the nuances involved with lead nurturing.
Cue OptifiNow’s services that go beyond other CRMs by turning leads into conversions. According to the media release, private mortgage lender Mountain West Financial implemented the OptifiNow system and saw lead conversions jump from 6 percent to 11 percent and dropped its daily customer communication applications use from five to one.
Since January, Vantage Production LLC, which touts solutions tailored for enterprise lenders’ and loan officers’ specific needs, has revealed the bulk of new business activity. The company announced three lenders as new Vantage Integrated Production customers and a key data integration partnership with a major consumer credit report provider.
Patchogue, N.Y.-based MCS Mortgage Bankers Inc. and Parsippany, N.J.-based Residential Home Funding Corp. were announced, on Jan. 22 and Feb. 3, respectively, as new Vantage Integrated users. Both companies echoed the need for a CRM tool that gave them compliant marketing capabilities while they focused on market growth.
On June 2, Vantage Production revealed GMH Mortgage Services as its most recent CRM platform client. GMH, which made recent Mortgage Daily headlines with its new wholesale lending division, plans to leverage the lead management, marketing and CRM tools for increasing loan production momentum across its retail origination platform while maintaining relationships with its current network base.
“With Vantage Integrated Production, our loan officers can create very powerful marketing and customer care campaigns that are highly targeted to borrower needs and that make our referral partners proud to be aligned with GMH,” Joseph Macchione, GMH corporate executive officer and president, said in the announcement.
Final Vantage Production news involved integration of Equifax’s Credit*Hi-Lite tri-merge credit data into the Vantage Integrated platform. This data merge gives originators instant access to borrowers’ credit information and allows for faster application approval by lenders, according to Vantage Production’s May 27 statement.
Meanwhile, Mortgage Harmony Corp. — which announced Jan. 27 that Churchill Mortgage had signed on as a correspondent lender for its signature HarmonyLoan product — noted that its other signature product is its Loan Retention Software. The service reportedly helps mortgage companies streamline borrowers’ requests for interest rate adjustments.
