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The Importance of Your Online Reputation · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
In today's highly competitive mortgage industry, building profitable relationships with
0:04
the real estate agents is essential for success.
0:06
However, finding effective ways to secure agent relationships can be a challenge.
0:11
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0:15
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Our new case study featuring loan officer Chris Cogill is a must-read.
0:25
Chris has closed a remarkable 36 million in funded loans from agent referrals.
0:31
And in this case study, he shares his proven strategies for building strong relationships
0:34
with real estate agents and leveraging those relationships to drive more business.
0:39
To get your hands on this resource, head over to LOKestudy.com and download your free copy
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of the case study today.
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You'll find actionable insights and practical tips that Chris used to close 36 million
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Don't miss out.
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Go check it out right now, visit LOKestudy.com and download your free copy today.
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Well hello boys and girls, welcome back to this episode of Mortgage Marketing Radio.
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How have you been?
1:15
How have you been?
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How's the market in your area?
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Let me guess, lack of inventory.
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Multiple offers beating over ask, competing to get your buyer offer accepted.
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Yeah, I think that's the state of the market in most of the areas of the country right
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now.
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So with that, right, how are you adjusting and pivoting?
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Because what I'm hearing is a lot of loan officers have buyers lined up but can't find
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the right property or can't get the property accepted, let's say.
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And then of course, we've got the issue of sellers being reluctant to sell because they're
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not confident about them finding the next ideal home they want.
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Let's just face it, it's tough, it's tough, right?
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With that said, what I'm seeing, you know, the more air quotes successful loan officers
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do is, you know, that old quote from Wayne Gretzky, which is, you go where the puck is
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going, not where the puck is, I'm reading reports that are talking about this low inventory
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issue is going to be an ongoing challenge for the coming next three to five years.
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So hang on for that because we've got the high demand of millennials, the largest segment
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of buyers, right, ever to enter the housing industry.
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We've got, of course, the low inventory, we've got low rates.
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We've got, you know, this whole situation post COVID, people working remotely, you know,
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this whole mix here, what am I, what am I getting at?
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I'm getting at, if you're going to plan on where the puck is going, not where it currently
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is, most of the loan officers I talk to agree when I ask them, do you need to diversify
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your roster of agents?
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Yes.
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You need to add more quality agents on your bus, yes.
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And are you satisfied or happy, right?
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With the means by which you've been going about doing that, some yes, some no.
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And more importantly, with the lack of time that we have, how do we accelerate the process
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of attracting, engaging, having conversations with agents and then converting some of
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those to actual referral partners?
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How do you do that at scale, right?
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How do you accelerate that?
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And most of the traditional methods, I'll be it, right, everything works to some degree,
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the degree to which it works varies based on the person and their location and dynamics
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of the market, etc.
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But here's what I found that always works.
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And that is attracting people to you because of a proposition that is universally attractive
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for most or many.
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And what I mean by that is, so if you're going where the puck is going, what that means
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is, if there's less inventory to go around and you want to sustain your level of income,
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you're going to need more sources of purchase business.
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And if we're talking about real estate agents, you're going to need more agents as sources
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of business, or what I call oil wells, and oil well, once you find an oil well, right,
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and in the oil's tab, typically the oil continues to produce, and it's the front end of finding
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the oil well, right, and getting the oil well to produce, I'll be at a relationship,
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that's what produces.
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The process is front loaded in terms of the heavy lifting and the effort finding, you
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know, all that kind of stuff digging, right, all, etc.
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And nowadays you need more oil wells because oil scares, what scares, transactions because
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of the low inventory, okay.
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And so even the top agents were seeing their businesses down because of the reduction
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in inventory.
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So what does that mean?
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Let's roll back to, hey, you need more, if you're going to focus on agents as a primary
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source, a pillar in business, you need more agents on your bus.
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How are you getting agents added to your bus?
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So you're co-calling, are you, you know, doing broker-preview, you know, a lot of areas
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are still kind of social distancing.
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So events haven't really come back in a big way yet.
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Well, heck, if you've been listening to me long enough, and the value proposition that
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I talk about that works most consistently is leading with education.
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And in today's world, and in the future world, the combination of online via Zoom or other
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platforms and in-person educational classes, topics, conversations that help agents solve
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problems.
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So what am I saying?
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I'm saying is if you want to add agents to your bus, if you want to diversify the relationships
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you have, if you want to increase the level of relationship you have with real estate
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agents, the quantity of agents and the quantity of referrals in a more systematic way, have
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you ever considered leading from the front by teaching agent classes?
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If you have done it in the past, here's what I probably know is that when I see alone
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officers who have taught agent classes in the past, they've gotten mixed results.
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It's either because they did it once or twice, kind of give it the half effort or they didn't
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promote it properly or it was a boring mortgage 101 class or an FHA class versus the topics
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that agents most want to hear about.
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And in today's market, what's working right now are topics that are dealing with how to
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get your buyer off or accepted and how to find more sellers in a low inventory market.
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Those are actually two classes that we have available right now that my members are teaching
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over Zoom and now some are starting to go back to in person.
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And they're attracting agents to these classes.
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And the amount of agents they attract varies from small classes, 10, 12, 15 agents or
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so, to other folks who get a little bit more aggressive with it and will have 80 agents
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on their virtual class.
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And from that, they'll follow a proven system and process to be able to convert those attendees
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to conversations, then convert them to referral partners.
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I mean, the list of how many people host a class and within 48 hours after that class gets
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referrals, I'd love you to see what that list is and who it is.
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I mean, you know, the names come to mind, Kerry Cobb, Janelle Davis, Chris Cogill.
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You've seen them.
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The garrisons out of Michigan, Ryan Miracle, you know, the list goes on and on and on.
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So it's not a question.
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It's Liz LaFore, Liz Rees just looking at my list of folks here.
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High Savage.
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So it's not a debate as to whether or not this works.
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I guess the debate is to whether you want to do it or not quite frankly.
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And if you do great, here's what you can do.
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Go check out mortgagemarketing.pro, watch the brief video of that I put up there.
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And if it's for you, come on in, join us, right?
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And if it's not, that's cool to keep enjoying this podcast and keep listening.
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And I appreciate you being here.
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So let's talk about my special guest this week.
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I'm really thrilled to bring this organization back for a second time.
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And what we're talking about here is it's actually a nice follow up to the podcast we just
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released last week with Sue Woodard, which was a case study in the customer journey experience,
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which if you haven't heard that, go back and listen to it where Sue and her team over
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a total expert, what they did was they pretended to be clients.
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It's a matter of fact, one of them were actually a client shopping for a home loan.
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And they audited the process of the customer experience of getting a home loan.
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Fantastic learnings from that.
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This conversation is more about how do you show up, right?
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Like what is your online reputation look like?
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If you're to Google you, which people are doing, what do they find?
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How are you doing with online reviews?
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What is your process for getting online reviews?
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What are the elements that go into a great customer experience?
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How are you collecting those online reviews at what stage in the process?
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Is it after the fact?
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Is it 30 days after or are you doing something right throughout the process to check in and
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make sure that people are thrilled with the experience?
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So you guys have heard the term the experience economy.
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Everything is experience, everything is experience.
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That's what's going to create loyalty.
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That's what's going to minimize and reduce price sensitivity.
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That's what's going to help create referrals and build a more sustainable business for you
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over time is the customer experience.
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So this is a continuation of that discussion.
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Brittany Hodak from experience.com and Kristen Messerley also from experience.com bring
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their wisdom to the conversation here today and unpack this for us.
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So if you want to learn more about experience.com in the past, by the way, they were formerly
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known as social survey.
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And now what's cool is they are both an enterprise platform, but we'll be having an individual
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loan officer option available too.
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If you're looking to step up your online presence, your online reputation, reviews, reviews
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and management, you know, monitoring that the whole soup to nuts thing, you can go to
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experience.com.
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Check that out.
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They've got a free download, which is the ROI of CX, and I encourage you to definitely check
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these guys out.
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They're the best in the business when it comes to online reputation.
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So without further ado, let's go to see yeah, James Brown felt pretty strong there.
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So without further ado, let's get into this week's show Brittany and Kristen, welcome to
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the show.
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Thank you so much for sitting here.
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You bet glad to have you both.
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Let's do this because people are usually listening.
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We don't identify a connect a voice with, you know, a name.
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So Kristen, why don't we go first?
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Who are you?
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Brief background.
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And then we'll go over to you, Brittany.
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All right.
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I'm Kristen Messerley, and I am ahead of the mortgage division here at experience.com, formerly
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known as social survey, my background, I started a company called Cultural Outreach,
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which I just recently sold to Namba and have worked with mortgage companies and lenders
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for the last eight years in reaching next gen consumers.
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Awesome.
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Thank you.
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Brittany, you're up.
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Hey, I'm Brittany Hodeck.
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I'm the chief experience officer of experience.com.
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I joined the company at the beginning of the year.
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Prior to that, I was speaking and writing on the subject of super fandom, and that follows
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a company that I launched and ran for eight years called the super fan company that was
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all about connecting people to the things that they love.
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All right.
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Very cool.
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Thank you for that.
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So we're here today, friends of social survey.
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I've been friends of social survey for many years, and knew me a favor.
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When you get a chance, pull Craig aside and ask him, hey, tell me you're like, where,
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when you met Jeff originally, because literally, it goes back well over 10 years ago, that I met
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Scott and Craig and San Diego, I believe they were presenting to a small office of real
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state agents, and actually, they were looking at bringing me on board at that time, which
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was a long time ago, but I was watching what they were doing way, way, way back then.
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So I've been following the journey ever since then, and really amazing to see the success
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they've had.
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And they complement to you guys and to them for having their awareness to bring to powerhouse
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women on like yourself to take it to the next level, which brings us to maybe the first
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point, which is the name change, formerly social survey, now experience.com, any, either
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of you want to comment on what's behind that, why the name change?
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Sure, you know, it was really just a natural evolution in the company.
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So when the company launched formally in 2015, they were so focused on the social and the
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survey aspects of the business, right?
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So collecting and amplifying the voice of customer, and then sharing that across social
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channels and other places online to where it could have the most impact.
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And over the past six years, there's been so much product like growth, much of which
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originated from people in the mortgage industry saying, I love this, but can you also do
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this?
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And this is fantastic, but it would really be helpful if you could do this.
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And so the product grew and grew and grew to the platform that it is today that has so
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many different modules and so many different ways to really collect, analyze, and act on
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the data in real time from all of your customers.
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And so as we continued to grow beyond the legacy product, it became obvious that we needed
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a new name.
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Scott had been eyeing experience.com for years.
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It was a domain that he'd always hoped that one day he would have because it just felt
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like the right home for the experience management platform that we've been building.
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So we were very fortunate to be able to acquire that domain at the end of last year and have
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that as in the home of the all new experience management platform that is just launched at
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experience.com.
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Oh, that sounds like you really practiced that and had that ready to go.
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No comment.
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Very thorough, very thorough, love it.
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And obviously the name, of course, better aligns with what I think what you guys are trying
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to do overall and for me, anyways, when I think about what you just said, it kind of levels
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up the conversation and let's maybe unpack this a little bit because it's one thing or
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one feeling to say, you know, online reviews, right?
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Boring, you know, I mean, heard about it a long time, online reviews, but what you're
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really now is you're leveling up the conversation and perhaps the awareness of like, look, we're
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talking about the customer experience, right?
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So do you guys want to any talking points around that that you want to dive into?
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Yes.
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First of all, sorry, I'm going to go first and then I know Brittany has lots to say on
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this.
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But first of all, I mean, reviews are not boring.
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I know that we've been talking about it for a long time, but people are still not quite
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getting it.
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I mean, I am going through the home buying process right now and I still, when I got
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a referral for a lender, I immediately Google that name and every consumer does that.
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And so that is the core of our product and that's something very, very important.
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But I am definitely thrilled with the idea that we're able to not just amplify the voice
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of the customer for the employers reviews for the company's reviews, but we're also able
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to analyze that data in order to provide drive real decisions around their customer experience.
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And we're collecting that voice at different touch points like after, you know, we can
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do a mid-process survey.
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What I'm really excited about is a survey after a like a canceled loan or something like
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that.
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I mean, I decided not to go with a lender because of a certain lack of technology they had
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and I was thinking, you know, if they had surveyed me, maybe they would have prioritized
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or learned from their customers that aren't choosing them as a lender, prioritized having
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a POS or increasing their technology adoption.
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And, you know, so that kind of data can go a really long way to growing your business
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and being able to be competitive long-term.
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All right.
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So we make me curious, who was that lender?
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They didn't have the little.
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Oh my God.
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But I will say, I mean, just in the role that I'm in and being curious, I did research
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a lot of lenders before deciding on the one that I chose.
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So I like all the technology.
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Well, I agree.
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And we're going to talk about that too.
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As a matter of fact, I have a personal story too, which some people listening may have
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heard it before.
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I moved to Vegas here, roughly three years ago from Southern California.
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And of course, I'm in the business, right?
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And I made the mistake.
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I didn't like, you know how you, I don't know if you guys have ever done this to anybody
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listening.
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It's like, you know, you, well, what I did is I made the mistake of telling my wife that
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we should buy a home, right?
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Because we were living here, everybody year and a half renting.
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And I'm like, you know what?
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We should really buy a home.
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Like, with the way everything's going and the, you know, sports team in Vegas is really
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growing and all this kind of stuff anyway.
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So boom, that was it.
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We're out looking at homes like crazy.
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And on this one Saturday, we find this house and we're like, that's it.
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It's the one Saturday.
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And I'm like, well, we don't have a pre-approval, man.
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I can't submit an offer.
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So I go crazy, right?
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Get online and I get referred to a few lenders from agents and stuff like that.
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And I had a, yeah, the experience for me was filled out of this online app, literally
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everything.
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Assets, connected bank accounts, souped nuts, it was on a Saturday.
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And I made it very clear.
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I need a pre-approval.
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I'm submitting an offer today.
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Monday comes nothing, right?
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Tuesday comes.
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I get a call from an assistant.
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I don't even know who this person is, never heard the name.
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And of course, I don't take the call because I'm angry and pissed off at this point.
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And then Wednesday comes and I get the wonderful automated video email that says, welcome to
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such and such company.
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The next step in your own process is, and I'm like, fail.
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So I know what you're talking about.
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There's a lot of those out there, right?
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Yeah.
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And you know, we live in an instant, everything world, right?
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As consumers, we're not just comparing experiences to be other experiences we've had in
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that arena.
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People aren't just comparing you to their best lending experience.
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We live in a world where we know from the second that we order the pizza on our app, who's
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touching it?
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Where it's at?
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If it's in the box yet, when it's going to get to our house, we can look at a package
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and see it all across the world on its way to our house in real time.
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And because customers know that type of technology exists, we've come to expect it, right?
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We want to be able to curate the experience we've had.
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We don't want to be treated like everyone else that the company is interfacing with.
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We want to be treated like individuals whose preferences are respected, whose wishes
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are act upon.
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And that's, you know, I will echo what Kristen said.
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Reviews are not boring.
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Reviews are absolutely critical to designing your CX in real time to make sure that you're
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future-proofing your business.
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I am very much of the school of thought that experience is everything, right?
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People used to say, are you a product business?
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Or are you a service business?
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I remember a decade or so ago when I was filing for my first trademarks, that's the
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first question, right, is are you a product business or are you a service business?
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And even a decade ago, I thought, what an old-school way of thinking.
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I can't believe the USPTO is still asking the question this way because everyone should
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be a product and a service business.
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The service is what makes your product and your product is the service, right?
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If you're an experienced economy, the experience that you provide is the way you future-proof
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your business against competitors, both now and later.
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Yeah, and by the way, just to clarify, I didn't mean to imply like the whole surveys are
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boring thing.
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I think what I was trying to get at there was like, you know, how people tune something
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out after a while like talking about, because a good survey is just a result of a good
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customer experience.
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That's the end result we want.
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And what I'm thinking to my head is I really want to talk about what are the elements
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that go into a great CX, you know what I mean?
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And I know you guys have spent some good time and research and defining that out.
20:47
So, well, let me answer you.
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The way that you do great CX is by doing it in a way that doesn't feel like CX, by being
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contextual, by being real time, by meeting the customer where they're at.
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So if you are still doing long-form surveys at the end of a loan process, that is not
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the way to do it, right?
21:06
When you're asking people to recall something that happened to them, you're not affecting
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a moment.
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You're affecting a memory.
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Recall something.
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So are you talking about like, hey, how would you rate our service after it's completed?
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Is that what you mean?
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Yes, I'm talking about, hey, you closed a loan with us 30 days ago.
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Let me ask you 45 questions, starting with what the process was like, starting with how
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did you find us, right?
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Let me ask you how 45 or 60 days ago you heard about us for the first time.
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And then, you know, we view through four pages of questions to get 37 answers that
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that may or may not ever be looked at by anyone in the organization versus short, real-time
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questions delivered in a way that's contextually appropriate, whether that's their text message,
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whether that's in line in an app, whether that's a quick email, but information that we
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can gather in real time and route it to the people who need that information to make
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sure that they're making the right decisions on an ongoing basis to Kristen's point before.
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If somebody had done a mid-process survey with her, she would have said, hey, I need you
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to do this.
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And they could have adjusted in the moment to that customer.
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The problem with sort of legacy CX is we ask people a lot of questions so that we can
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make the next customer's experience better by collecting data over time.
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Real-time CX is using data to improve the experience for that customer who's answering
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the questions.
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All right, Devils, I have a kid hat back on.
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How does that happen though?
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That sounds like a lot like real-time, you know what I'm saying, CX.
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The average LLO is like, how the heck am I going to do that?
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I'm like busy putting out fires and dealing with 17 loans, you know?
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Automation, right?
22:47
Automation is the answer.
22:48
All right.
22:49
All right.
22:50
And so what you're saying is experience.com, your platform can do that.
22:54
Yeah.
22:55
The worst thing?
22:56
Okay.
22:57
Don't be shy here.
22:58
It's not the shy show.
23:00
Yes.
23:01
That's the answer.
23:02
So the way we look at CX is the biggest competitive advantage that you have or the humans
23:09
in your business, right?
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The employees that are creating the experiences.
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So you need to offload as much as you can to the extent that something can be automated.
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It should be automated so that the humans in your business are spending their time doing
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the things that only humans can do, right?
23:26
All right.
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A human should never have to think about sending a survey.
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That's something that should trigger automatically.
23:31
A human should never have to think about going to a dashboard to look for the information
23:36
at the right time.
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You don't deliver to them automatically.
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The only thing that humans should be thinking about is how to use the information they're
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getting to make the next best right decision for the customer on the other end of that
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transaction.
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And honestly, LOS are so busy right now.
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And closing times are so long.
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Like I'm in day 40 right now, you know, and just infuriated almost, but I know that this
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is where we're at.
24:02
This is how it goes.
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If I got a survey right now that was just like, hey, wanted to check in with you, make
24:08
sure everything's going okay.
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And I had my voice heard that makes me feel better as a consumer.
24:14
It makes me feel like, okay, I know you're doing the best you can.
24:17
You're checking in on your customer.
24:19
That's amazing.
24:20
I can have.
24:21
And maybe they are going to pick up on something really important that they can improve
24:24
on in the future.
24:25
But instead, if they're going to survey me at the at closing, and then I give them a
24:29
four or five star review, like what are they learning from that?
24:32
You know, like, okay, great.
24:33
Yeah, you got another one of those boring reviews on there.
24:36
But are you learning anything about your customer experience and did you actually make
24:39
your customer feel so good that I'm going to be an advocate for you and refer business
24:44
to you in the future?
24:45
And so you take that at scale, right?
24:47
You take an L.O. who's dealing with not one file like Christians, but 20 or 30 or
24:53
50 simultaneously.
24:55
It's a big lift to expect a person to remember to reach out to all of those people.
25:01
This is if you can just write a role that says, never let more than this many of days go
25:05
by without checking in, even if it's just a quick note to say, hey, I wanted to see how
25:10
you're doing, right?
25:11
It's it's a little things like that that you can automate to make sure that people feel
25:15
validated.
25:16
They feel seen.
25:17
They feel heard.
25:18
They know that you care about their experience.
25:22
You're saying you automate those little check-ins through the through the process?
25:26
Absolutely.
25:27
Absolutely.
25:28
That's some type of a digital check-in.
25:29
Yep.
25:30
Absolutely.
25:31
So it's about designing the customer journey that makes the most sense for your own business.
25:36
And everyone's customer journey looks different.
25:38
I always make the joke, you know, the meme of modern art and it says modern art is the
25:43
intersection of I could have done that and yeah, but you didn't.
25:46
You guys have that meme.
25:48
Oh, yeah.
25:49
I don't think Christian did.
25:50
Because she's really laughing.
25:51
Yeah.
25:52
So there's that meme, right?
25:53
Because you see like a chair inside of a red tape square and you're like, I could have
25:56
done that.
25:57
Right.
25:58
I like to say CX is the intersection of I could have done that and, okay, then why
26:04
don't you?
26:05
Right.
26:06
It's so easy to say, yes, I could do that.
26:08
But if CX was that easy, then every hotel would be the Ritz Carlton and every fast food
26:14
place would be Chick-fil-A and every airline would be Southwest.
26:17
You have to make the conscious decision to say we are going to be customer led.
26:21
We are going to ensure that every employee knows that our number one objective is that
26:26
our customers have an amazing experience.
26:28
And then you have to be intentional with the design to make sure that everything your
26:32
business does is aligned with those goals of CX.
26:37
Okay.
26:39
So in your, one of the downloads you have from your website at experience.com, you have
26:44
the RIFCX, which is a PDF basically, right?
26:48
Our strategic customer experience programs can impact business outcomes.
26:52
And you have this graphic in there that's under the headline of how to build an effective
26:56
CX strategy.
26:57
It's the great wow customer experiences, right?
27:00
You know what I'm talking about?
27:01
Have you guys read your document?
27:03
I have.
27:04
Yes.
27:05
I don't have it up in front of me, but yes.
27:06
I know.
27:07
So this is what I do, though.
27:08
I catch people after.
27:09
No.
27:10
I'm kidding, right?
27:11
But I'm looking at some of the pieces that are puzzling here.
27:13
And so part of what you're talking about, I always try and bring it down to the, you know,
27:17
the base level, rather than 30,000 foot, what elements go into creating this wow, because
27:23
here's the thing.
27:24
We can talk, you know, at that high level of like, we need to automate this and we need
27:28
to put this in this little check.
27:30
And people can do that to varying degrees, I think, based on their team or based on,
27:34
you know, resources they have.
27:36
But also, I don't want to leave here without talking about things they can do today, regardless
27:40
if they're using experience.com or not.
27:43
What's some things can they do to have a better customer experience?
27:48
So I'm going to go first and then I'm going to like Kristen Jumben, because I know she
27:50
has a lot to add to this.
27:52
But the thing that always blows me away when I talk to Allos is a lot of times I'll say,
27:57
what do you want?
27:58
And they say, well, I want to meet more realtors and I want to get more referrals.
28:01
And I say, okay, great.
28:02
Why should a realtor give the referrals to you instead of any of the other allos in
28:05
your market?
28:06
And they're stumped, right?
28:07
Or they say, well, because I've been doing it for 20 years, well, guess what?
28:11
You have a lot of other people and a lot of people in your market have been doing it
28:14
for 30 years or 40 years.
28:15
So try again.
28:16
Well, because I'm going to work really hard.
28:18
Gee, I wonder how many of your competitors are saying that they also work really hard.
28:22
So I always say that the very first thing you have to do is start with your story.
28:27
If you can't figure out why you're the absolute best choice for a potential customer to work
28:32
with, how in the world are they ever going to figure it out, right?
28:35
How are you ever going to be able to effectively communicate your uniqueness to the people out
28:40
there who's a tension you're trying to get?
28:42
If you don't know with certainty and clarity, what it is that you have to offer that's better
28:48
than all of your competitors, you're going to be like throwing spaghetti in the wall, right?
28:52
You're going to be trying to compete and win on a lot of different differentiations.
28:56
And it's not going to be clear to people what it is that you're actually best at.
29:00
And you're not going to be focusing on showcasing your best strength.
29:04
So I always say, figure out your superpower, figure out your origin story.
29:09
How did you get to where you're at and how are you uniquely positioned to help the right
29:15
kind of customer for you?
29:17
Once you get clarity on that, you can use that as the core of all of your marketing, right?
29:23
All of your messages can point back to that.
29:25
You're going to be talking about your uniqueness.
29:28
You can find ways to emphasize that in everything you do, whether it's your emails, whether
29:33
it's your social campaigns, everything you do is marketing.
29:37
Everything you do is setting the tone and telling part of the story of who you are.
29:41
So little things like the way you sign off on your emails or the way you acknowledge
29:47
a closing, whether it's through a card or a little closing gift or whatever it is, all
29:52
of those things are parts of the story.
29:54
You've got to make sure that they're all aligned with that core origin story and that
29:59
core superpower about what you do.
30:02
And if you do that, you're going to become more memorable.
30:04
You're going to become more effective and you're going to not just get more repeat business
30:09
because people are going to remember you.
30:10
They're going to know like and trust you, but they're going to think of you when the
30:14
time is right to make a referral or a recommendation.
30:17
So you've got to start with your story.
30:18
If you haven't figured it out, if you don't know your secret sauce, it's unrealistic to
30:23
expect that other people are going to be able to differentiate you or pick you out of
30:27
a crowd.
30:28
Okay.
30:29
Love it.
30:30
I'll come back to you in a minute, Kristen.
30:31
Anything you want to add to that?
30:33
Um, just that everything needs to come down to the customer being at the center of the
30:37
transaction.
30:38
You know, it is, it's not that the loan officer or anyone is is holding information even
30:44
though you are, you're helping them make the biggest financial decision of their lives.
30:49
It's their decision and you want to make sure that you are guiding them through this process.
30:53
And so whatever you can do to help the consumer feel empowered through that, whether that's
30:58
the, um, you know, the, the initial conversation that you're having with them, feeling out
31:02
how much education they want and how, you know, and, and definitely when it comes down
31:06
to sharing their loan options, like being very clear about here are your options and not
31:11
just sending over, I cannot believe people still just send over, you know, loan estimate
31:17
and expect the consumer to understand what in the heck is going on in there.
31:20
You know, I mean, I, I'm a licensed loan officer on accident because I had to do it for
31:26
a technology I was working on, but I, I should know better, but I still got my loan estimate
31:30
and was just like, I'm so overwhelmed, you know, and, um, and so I think it's the
31:35
loan officer's job and when they're going to provide the best customer experience, it's
31:40
when the consumer feels like, okay, you've got my back, you're helping me make these smart
31:45
decisions for myself.
31:46
It's not, okay, I'm trusting you with everything, you know, I, I'm not just going to sign a
31:52
bunch of documents and hope for the best on that.
31:54
A lot of people are doing that and that's not a good customer experience.
31:58
I think it's, you know, but like to make that really practical, it's sending over short
32:02
videos to talk through what they're, what they're seeing in their loan estimate.
32:06
It's using tools like mortgage coach or MBS highway or whatever to show those kinds
32:10
of loan options.
32:11
It's, it's sending over a video when you're sending over all those disclosures and saying,
32:15
here's what you're signing and here's a, you know, a quick run through on that, but it's
32:20
making it accessible and easy for the customer to then also understand that you have their
32:25
back through this and, and you're going to empower them through this process.
32:29
Yeah.
32:30
Yeah.
32:31
That's, now we're in the line of what I, what I kind of meant with the whole like surveys
32:35
common.
32:36
It's like, that's just the end result, but really where those surveys are created or
32:40
the, the origin of those surveys are everything you're talking about here.
32:43
This create wow process, which has multiple pieces to the puzzle.
32:47
So to go back, what you said, Brittany is a story, an origin story, that's pretty cool.
32:52
So as simple as, because that, do you think people struggle with that?
32:56
Like coming up with a story like, what makes me different as a loan officer, you know?
32:59
I know people struggle with that and, and, and, and, and, no people struggle with that because
33:03
I talk a lot about it.
33:04
I, I talk a lot about creating super fans, which to boil it down to simplest terms are,
33:08
our customers who create more customers for you, right?
33:11
People who are out there advocating on your behalf and the way you create super fans
33:15
is by connecting your story to your customer story.
33:19
And the way you get to your customer story is by asking questions.
33:23
It's by being genuinely curious, it's by taking the time to acknowledge the fact that
33:29
to Kristen's point, this is an incredibly overwhelming process.
33:33
These are people who, who may have all of the feelings that people have around financial
33:37
stuff in general, right?
33:38
So the confusion or, or, you know, maybe the shame, right, of, of things in their past,
33:44
they're feeling very vulnerable by sharing all of this information, perhaps overwhelm,
33:49
perhaps confused, and they don't know what they don't know.
33:53
So a lot of times people lead with that authority.
33:56
They want to come across as the expert, but they forget about the inverse of that, which
33:59
is the empathy, which is taking the time to meet the customer where they're at and let
34:04
them know that it's okay if they don't, it not only is it okay if they have questions,
34:08
it's okay if they don't even know what questions they should have.
34:11
Yeah.
34:12
We're going to bring them where they're at and saying, let's do this together.
34:15
To Kristen's point, if you can be a guide, if you can be the person who says, I got you.
34:20
I know this is hard, luckily for you, I've done it hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of
34:25
times, and I know it might feel overwhelming right now, but I promise you, I'm right here
34:29
with you and we're going to do this together and it's going to be awesome.
34:32
You're going to be so glad we get to the other side.
34:35
And to the extent that you can infuse your personality or your story into the way that you're
34:40
doing all of that to make it feel less overwhelming and more fun, you're going to win, right?
34:47
Like if you can make the loan process fun and enjoyable by making people enjoy that experience
34:53
of working with you, think about how that sets you up for repeat business and referrals
34:59
in the future.
35:00
Yeah.
35:01
And I can't tell you how many people I have interviewed or talked to that are, would
35:05
be home buyers or soon to be home buyers and they say that they didn't want to talk
35:09
to a loan officer yet because they felt nervous that they were going to get laughed
35:12
away or that they hadn't saved enough or they didn't know, you know, they didn't know
35:16
enough.
35:17
And so people go online, they do their search and they get really overwhelmed and then
35:20
they say, well, I don't know, I'm not ready to go to a loan officer and get sold to or
35:25
get laughed away.
35:27
And so I think it's really important to build your brand and build a story around this
35:31
idea that you are going to provide a home ownership plan to everyone and you're there to help
35:36
guide them through that because there's so many people that would be able to buy right
35:40
now if they understood that and or would refer you to someone that can buy right now.
35:46
And creating that content is so important because not only are you positioning yourself
35:50
as an expert, but you're transforming from a commodity provider to a category of one because
35:57
by the time somebody picks up the phone to call you or sends you an email, they don't
36:02
want to work with a loan officer, they want to work with you because you're the one
36:06
and they know, like, and trust, you're the one who's met them where they're at and ask
36:11
the questions.
36:12
And every single person listening right now is an expert, whether you know it or not,
36:15
like Kristen said, she's a certified, she's, she's, she's an expert at this, right?
36:20
And she's the one to understand how to how to read this.
36:23
So make a list of the questions that people ask you all the time or the questions that
36:29
you wish they would ask or the questions that you wish people knew the answers to before
36:33
they went to look at homes, right?
36:35
Make a list of those questions, record a series of short videos for your answering one
36:39
question per video.
36:40
In all of a sudden, you've got weeks and weeks and weeks worth of content, original
36:45
pillar content that's going to position you as the expert.
36:48
And then from now on, when people ask you those same questions, instead of taking the
36:52
time to answer them, you can say, oh, you know what, here's the answer.
36:55
And by the way, since you ask that question, there's a good chance you might be curious
36:58
about some of these other things.
37:00
Here's an entire playlist I put together for first time home buyers or here's an entire
37:03
playlist that I put together for people looking to refi or here's an entire playlist I put
37:08
together around VA loans and what those mean and why it might be a good choice for you.
37:12
You already know the answers to those questions.
37:14
So to answer them through your own lens into, you know, a playlist that you have to share
37:20
again and again and again is going to pay dividends for you.
37:24
Reach on, girl, reach on, where is my, that's the applause button, by the way.
37:33
I love what you're saying.
37:34
I'm right down all these notes and I have been preaching that same thing, FAQs for so
37:37
long.
37:38
I wish more people would do it.
37:40
So I'm hearing a couple of points I want to highlight from this because you're coming
37:42
at them fast and furious and people are like, hold over, take notes on this thing or
37:46
listen to it again.
37:47
Don't write while you're diving.
37:49
Yeah, exactly.
37:50
So I think one of the first places for people to implement what you're talking about story,
37:56
origin story, what's different about us is to slow down when that call comes in.
38:02
And I know they're going to come at you with a question of what's your rate, you know what
38:06
I mean or whatever it is.
38:07
And you said it a couple of times here, questions, right?
38:10
We all know the old cliche that whoever asks the questions is in control of the conversation.
38:16
That's where you need to pause, pivot, and like a phrase such as, you know, hey, what's
38:20
your interest rate?
38:21
Well, that's a great question.
38:22
Would you mind if I take a moment first and explain to you a little bit about what makes
38:25
us different as a lender, right?
38:28
Does that make sense there?
38:29
That kind of transitional phrase?
38:30
Have they're not?
38:32
Absolutely.
38:33
Okay.
38:34
Okay.
38:35
I just want for the listeners, I'd like to break it down, you know, keep it real simple
38:38
of like, so how do you implement this?
38:40
You implement it with your scripting with the first words that come out of your mouth
38:43
and stop just because somebody asks you, what's your rate?
38:46
Doesn't mean you need to answer it exactly in that moment or exactly as you think they
38:49
want to hear it.
38:50
The other point I love that you guys have made is what we don't because we live in this
38:55
so often every single day, we don't, I don't think, stop to consider the emotions that
39:01
they're coming to the conversation with, you know, like you said, Kristen, about the fear
39:05
of not knowing or not being able to qualify or not having enough, you know, people, one
39:10
of their worst fears is to look, you know, to be embarrassed, to look bad, right?
39:15
And they don't want to do that.
39:16
Obviously in this case, either.
39:18
So I love the fact that you both articulated, let's talk about what I wrote down was the
39:23
elephant in the room.
39:24
And that will vary based on who you're dealing with and some, some people will have elephants
39:28
on the roof.
39:29
But in general, you've got to, you've got to get to what are they already coming to the
39:32
conversation with?
39:33
Like, is this your first time buying a house, right?
39:36
All of a sudden, if they say, yeah, she's like, wow, you know, I mean, all of a sudden
39:40
getting to your store, I can totally relate, I remember my, or whatever, all of a sudden
39:43
you have a connecting kind of conversation where you can go, am I, am I on the right track
39:47
there?
39:48
Yeah.
39:49
And I think, you know, to Brittany's point about empathy and, and individualization, like
39:56
personalization, that's so, so important to all of this because, you know, just, just
40:01
understanding, like you're saying, taking a step back and saying, like, okay, this person
40:05
might be pretty anxious about this right now, even though I do this all day every day,
40:09
this is their first time, or, or time, it's still stressful when, um, and finances may
40:15
be something, finances are emotional for people.
40:18
I actually teach a, or speak on a topic often on understanding your money story, where
40:25
it's like, you know, recognizing that money has a really stressful connotation for a lot
40:30
of people.
40:31
And if you think about your earliest story around money, like how your parents handled
40:34
money or whatever, that usually is driving your behavior towards money for the rest of
40:39
your life.
40:40
And so, you know, thinking about that connotation and then recognizing that's in your customers
40:44
and having empathy for, let's really lay this out.
40:47
And it's funny because when, when I found the loan officer, loan officer at my dreams,
40:52
um, he was like, rate was not in my mind.
40:56
And yet, rate was only what I thought about before that, you know, I mean, it's just like
41:00
a, um, he, I knew that he was going to help me make the best decision.
41:05
And I think, to your point about just really taking a step back, recognizing this person's
41:11
individual situation and saying, let's, and being super, super transparent and clear,
41:16
like then the customer doesn't have to worry.
41:19
And I, I'm just not going to shop rate whenever I have that kind of experience.
41:24
So what, what, what did that lender say or do or what was the experience that made you
41:29
completely move away from what's your rate to feeling completely trustworthy?
41:33
Well, everyone knows I'm a huge fan of mortgage coach.
41:36
You had mortgage coach and that was really helpful.
41:39
But also, um, you know, it's just this, I felt like, did he know who you were about
41:43
or he or she know who you were?
41:45
Uh, yes, that, okay, well, yeah, probably Google.
41:48
Do you really want to mean like, yeah, but it's funny because, um, unfortunately,
41:54
this is maybe going off topic, but unfortunately, I fell in love with a property that does
41:58
not, um, it has very, very strict financing rules.
42:02
And so I can't, I have to get a very specific product.
42:05
There's only two lenders in all of LA that will do this.
42:08
And they don't care at all who I am, like they, and, and that, you know,
42:13
their customer experience is kind of the worst.
42:15
And so that's not after who I just completely fell in love with, um, but he, he didn't care.
42:21
He, I mean, regardless, he was like, okay, well, let me, let me show you options
42:26
for those two lenders and he gave me a total cost analysis for those.
42:29
And it says, you know, let me, um, he just helped walk me through that.
42:34
What? Yes. Yeah. Perfect.
42:36
And so I immediately text a big thread of all my friends saying, Hey, as soon as you
42:41
guys need a loan officer, let me know I've got the perfect person for you.
42:44
And that's the kind of behavior that everyone, regardless, you know, if, if they get
42:48
treated that way, even if they don't go with you as their lender, they're going
42:52
to send everyone they know and care about to you.
42:55
Right. Right. 100%.
42:57
Yeah. If you just show up to serve, right?
42:59
Yep.
42:59
And keep them to win on that.
43:01
Um, all right.
43:02
Um, I'm keeping eye on the clock here as well.
43:04
And I, I pulled up an article because of Kristen that you had written of the many,
43:08
um, but let's face it, one of the largest segments of home buyers are millennials.
43:11
And your headline caught my attention here, the millennials don't trust lenders
43:16
or the housing market.
43:18
So, and this was, uh, this was actually going back about a year ago, but
43:22
the housing market, like it's changed a bit since then.
43:26
It's just more less inventory, still super busy.
43:28
But, but what are your comments around that, uh, and what advice could you give
43:33
because we're serving millennials, obviously, in a big way?
43:36
Yeah. Honestly, I don't remember exactly what I put in that article, but I know what I believe.
43:40
So I'm going to go based off that, um, but I will say, well,
43:44
you want to go to go even millennials, right?
43:46
Yeah. There you go.
43:48
So do you trust lenders?
43:49
Do you, do you trust some lenders?
43:50
How do you feel about the housing market?
43:52
I grew up in the industry.
43:53
It's very, very different situation.
43:55
That's right.
43:55
Yeah, so I forgot.
43:56
Yeah, but I will say, I mean, millennials entered adulthood during or right
43:59
after the financial crisis.
44:01
And also I surveyed thousands of millennial home buyers and then, you know,
44:06
I did a next-gen home buyer report last year and this has been the focus of my career.
44:10
And yeah, people don't trust, not just lenders.
44:14
They don't trust salespeople in general.
44:16
They don't trust the housing market.
44:17
There's so much fear around that purchase.
44:20
But, you know, you think about there's just fear generally around this purchase,
44:24
regardless of all of those other additional factors, the biggest financial
44:28
decision you're making of your life.
44:30
And a lot of people feel very alone in that.
44:32
I mean, buying a home is very different now than it was when their parents bought a
44:36
home for the first time.
44:37
And the world is very different today.
44:41
So I think, you know, when I might have talked about in that article,
44:45
and if not, it's still interesting and relevant.
44:47
It's taking an approach to this.
44:50
It's a totally empathetic approach.
44:53
This that Brittany was talking about where I kind of outlined what I used in my social
45:00
work practice that was like tenants of trauma informed care.
45:05
So people that are in extremely anxious situations and have a lot of anxiety
45:09
around something, you approach that in a very empathetic way and be conscious of,
45:14
like, you know, how can I be the most transparent and collaborative and provide a sense of
45:21
safety?
45:22
And, you know, these tenants are really crucial in a high stress situation like in social
45:29
work, but it also fits exactly in line with the kind of customer experience it's going
45:33
to attract and retain millennials.
45:38
I've got the article here.
45:39
So just to one of the things you point out, I think it's relevant is your reference to
45:42
study by even financial that 92% of millennials banks could not be trusted.
45:47
And over half said, they don't have anyone to turn to for financial advice.
45:53
And so when I hear that, I think, I think content, I think content, right?
45:59
Like the videos you talked about before, Brittany, it's like, what do you think
46:02
millennials were to respond favorably to?
46:04
We talked about those FAQ videos or just, you know, the educational content should
46:08
be put, be putting out videos that are financially educational.
46:14
Yeah, absolutely.
46:14
We said, and I think people will respond.
46:16
And I think, you know, I, I bought my first home four and a half years ago and I sound
46:23
so silly saying now, but I never even thought about getting a mortgage.
46:28
It was just like, oh, there's banks that give you money, right?
46:30
You're like, you're like, let's just get a home.
46:32
Like not even like, how do we do that?
46:34
Let's just go.
46:35
Yeah, exactly.
46:36
Literally never thought about it.
46:37
And I, my husband and I lived in New York City and I was, I was in town visiting
46:42
Nashville, which is where we knew we wanted to be.
46:44
And on a whim, I was like, I'm going to just go look at houses and, you know,
46:47
I found a real turn online and saw a house and said, all right, this is the one I want.
46:52
And she said, okay, are you pre-qualified?
46:54
And I was like, pre-qualified for what?
46:56
What does that mean?
46:57
And she was like, are you pre-qualified?
46:59
And I was like, I mean, you took a meeting with me, right?
47:02
Like you're showing me homes.
47:03
I'm like, do you call me, I'm like, it's me.
47:05
Like I do literally nothing about it.
47:08
And I think that's so many people, right?
47:09
As we don't know what we don't know.
47:11
And, you know, you watch HDTV at all, what do you see?
47:14
You see people going and picking out their dream home and then they magically move in, right?
47:18
There's not an entire series of TV shows that talk about the mortgage process.
47:24
What do we know about buying a home?
47:26
Oh, that it's fun, right?
47:27
You get, you're going to, you're going to maybe flip a home or you're going to find your dream home or,
47:31
you know, maybe you're going to, you're going to upgrade your own.
47:33
Like there are all of these things that you never even think to Google because you don't know what you don't know.
47:38
So when you're creating content, when you're meeting people where they're at,
47:41
where you're saying, hey, you haven't thought about this before,
47:44
but here's something that you're going to need to know about.
47:47
And, you know, I own my own business at the time.
47:50
So the fact that it was so much harder for me to get everything together for that loan than I thought,
47:56
it was, I had a terrible experience.
47:58
I had a horrible experience with my lender because they told me it was going to be so easy.
48:02
And I was like, this isn't easy.
48:03
I had to get you like five years of taxes for my business.
48:07
This was not easy.
48:08
I had to pay like $1,000 just for my accountant to go find all this stuff.
48:12
This was not easy.
48:13
You never told me I was going to have to do this.
48:15
So a better set up or response for that would have would have been.
48:19
Okay.
48:20
So you're, you're self-employed.
48:22
I don't want to scare you off, but just want to properly prepare you for the work we've got to do.
48:27
Absolutely.
48:28
And even things, you know, to a Kristen's point of serving people at multiple touch points.
48:31
So again, I had, I had no, no expectations of what it was going to be like because I'd never really thought about it.
48:39
And to the extent that, you know, my everything was close, everything was great.
48:43
Like we closed, we moved in.
48:45
I got a letter in the mail saying, you know, thank you so much.
48:48
We're happy to be your lender set up your portal to pay your first payment online.
48:54
And I was like, okay, great.
48:55
I know I don't have to, I know I'm not going to have to, you know, make a payment for a month or so,
48:58
but I'm going to go ahead and get everything set up.
49:00
Make sure that I get, you know, paperless billing, all of that.
49:03
So I get everything set up three weeks later.
49:05
I get a letter in the mail that's like, your loan has been sold.
49:08
This is the new company that you'll be making your payment to.
49:10
And I was like, all right, I guess they sold my loan.
49:13
Maybe that's something that happens.
49:14
I don't know.
49:14
No one had explained it to me, right?
49:16
The lender didn't say, oh, by the way, here's what's going to happen next.
49:19
So I create another login and I get ready to make my first payment, right?
49:23
I think I'm all set up three days before my very first alone payment was going to be
49:28
you again, I get a letter in the mail that's like, your loan was bought by another bank.
49:33
And so at this point, I call my lender and I'm like, three different companies now,
49:37
like, how many times this is going to happen?
49:38
And he's like, oh, no, it's fine.
49:39
It should be good.
49:40
They're probably not going to sell it again.
49:42
And I was like, oh, you knew this was going to happen?
49:43
Oh, yeah, this is how it works.
49:45
Well, how is I supposed to know that?
49:47
So now I'm, I'm upset because I'm now for the third time creating a username and password
49:52
and figuring out the system where I'm going to be going to make my mortgage payment.
49:56
So even things like that, right?
49:57
That and he was like, oh, I'm sorry.
49:58
I never thought about the fact that I should tell you that.
50:01
And I was like, oh, okay.
50:02
And my mind, what that tells me as a customer is to him, this relationship is over, right?
50:08
The fact that he wasn't thinking about my experience post him getting that commission means
50:13
that I guess, I guess we don't have a relationship even anymore, right?
50:17
So I would never use, I would never use that lender again, even though I get that,
50:20
you know, automated postcards in the mail once a year with my birthday or on my birthday
50:25
and an email every now and then because it was very clear to me.
50:29
It was very apparent that he was not thinking about nor we see that concerned
50:33
about my experience beyond where it no longer directly impacted him on that deal.
50:39
Yeah.
50:39
And real quick, I think there's a lot of assumptions that are made accidentally,
50:43
completely accidentally that about people's not only their mortgage literacy,
50:49
but financial literacy.
50:50
And I think no matter what, I mean, I've done, I did a training at Harvard Business School
50:55
one time where no one knew you could put less than 20% down on a home.
51:00
And so there's just some basics that to your point about the video content,
51:06
if you had, if you're sharing that kind of stuff on social media,
51:09
it also helps people understand that you're someone that they can go to for financial advice
51:14
or for anything about home buying and then you can drift that out along the way as well.
51:20
But that's something that I called a outreach that was,
51:22
we create content for the 20% literacy and mortgage related.
51:27
And we heard so many stories of people saying like,
51:30
this is just how this is really, really important to their customers to recognize
51:34
like, and the loan officers often don't realize that they're missing that information
51:40
and sharing that because it's second nature to them at this point.
51:44
I have to tell you, so having been an originator, I can't speak for everybody,
51:49
but there's basically, it's like, that's potentially risky to bring that up.
51:56
That's to let you know, hey, by the way, when this trans just want to give you a sense.
52:00
Now, I think there's ways you can, again, it all comes back to scripting and how you set it up.
52:03
But I know that's a convert, that's like the third rail.
52:05
People want to stay away from that, right?
52:07
Because they're like, oh my God, if I bring up that as soon as this loan closes,
52:10
the likelihood is your loan's going to be sold immediately.
52:13
It creates these emotions and energy is like, wait a minute.
52:15
Whoa, whoa, whoa, what you're going to sell my loan off?
52:17
Because I know what you're talking about.
52:18
Other people and regular people who don't do this, regular people, they're like,
52:24
why that doesn't make any sense?
52:26
And of course, we're in the industry.
52:27
It's like, yes, it does.
52:27
Let me explain to you why they do it blah, blah, blah.
52:30
But I can just tell you, for me personally, and probably some others,
52:34
we were afraid to bring it up for fear of blowback, you know?
52:39
But let me ask you this.
52:41
Would you rather preface that and have the conversation or just completely ignore it
52:46
and know that you're probably not going to get business from that consumer again in the future, right?
52:51
I mean, I always take a short-sighted approach to thinking about each deal in a silo
52:57
rather than how do I create a customer for life?
53:00
I think at the matter of when to broach that topic.
53:03
You know what I mean?
53:03
So yeah, in my example, it would have been fine for them to bring it up post-closing, right?
53:08
Or add closing, like, hey, maybe don't, maybe don't take the time to, you know,
53:13
set up, set up credentials on our website and, oh, if you get a letter in the mail
53:17
on a couple of weeks, this is what it means and this is why it happened.
53:20
Because you may or may not know that you don't know for sure if they're going to sell it off
53:24
or if you do, you don't know how soon, you know, all that stuff.
53:26
But, you know, I do, I do agree.
53:28
If you're at a company, because I know when listening right now,
53:30
you know if your company keeps their portfolio or not, most don't.
53:34
And so, yeah, that'd be an interesting point of differentiation to disclose that.
53:38
Yeah, that's a complicated thing for the customer too.
53:41
So I do think it's going to wait until closing or right after closing to go through that,
53:47
but take the time to go through that.
53:49
But then you can take the time to, and the customer can actually process that information.
53:54
But if you're trying to understand that and go through the, you know, their loan options,
53:58
like, it's too much.
53:59
Out of the front, no.
54:00
Well, and if you're creating content, you can think about your content in three buckets
54:04
before, during and after.
54:05
So what do you wish somebody knew before they ever spoke with you?
54:08
What do they need to know during the process of getting a loan
54:11
or whatever the product is that you're working on?
54:13
And then after the fact, what are some common questions that many consumers
54:17
might have based on the experience?
54:18
You can create those as three different playlists.
54:21
And as part of your post-closing process, say, Hey,
54:24
wanted to send over this quick playlist of eight videos that I made with eight
54:28
common questions that come up sometime, take a look when you get a chance.
54:31
And if you want to talk about any of these more in depth, give me a call, always
54:34
happy to reconnect.
54:35
And then you've covered your basis, right?
54:37
You've sent a playlist that most people probably aren't going to look at.
54:40
And then if they have questions after the fact, they can come back and say,
54:43
Oh, well, actually, they did send me an email with videos covering these things.
54:47
Yeah, at least you covered your bases there.
54:48
Yeah, just the fact that they didn't watch it, that's not your problem.
54:51
But I did make that available.
54:52
What happens after you close?
54:54
Yeah, I like that.
54:55
Very cool.
54:55
All right.
54:56
Last couple of minutes we have left.
54:58
What changes are there to, in a post-COVID world, right?
55:02
With the customer experience and building trust and millennials don't trust banks
55:06
and lenders.
55:07
What changes have you seen happened?
55:10
Do you think we'll remain or any coaching you can give us for those that are listening?
55:13
I'm, how do we do that?
55:15
Like consumer expectations changed around that.
55:19
You know what I mean?
55:20
What would you guys say on that?
55:21
I would say that consumer expectation, like customers aren't going back.
55:26
I would say the post-COVID world is the world today.
55:29
And when it comes to home buying experience.
55:33
And so other than not having to schedule your open houses maybe or something like that.
55:39
But more and more people are choosing to work remotely, permanently,
55:44
and are able to do that.
55:46
More and more people are very comfortable and expect to do everything
55:50
through their mobile devices or online.
55:53
So that's going to continue to accelerate digital mortgage generally.
55:59
Has was accelerating very, very quickly.
56:01
Technology is accelerating quickly alongside the pandemic.
56:04
And not, and then because of the pandemic, it just, it just perpetuate or increase that significantly.
56:10
So I don't think, I think it's really important that we don't expect things to go back
56:15
to a certain way in any regard.
56:17
It's going to continue to be very much video consultations and digital loan apps,
56:22
digital tools.
56:24
And doing what you can to have those personalized customer experience touch points
56:31
through digital mechanisms and digital tools.
56:36
Yeah, I agree with all of that.
56:37
I mean, Jeff, you shared the story pretty pandemic of how upset you were that you got put
56:42
into a workflow with no customization so that you got your first welcome message several days
56:47
later. That is going to be the norm, right?
56:50
It is no longer a nice to have to have the automation and the personalizations.
56:56
It is the cost of entry.
56:57
People aren't just comparing you to other lenders.
56:59
People are comparing you to the best service experiences they've had anywhere online.
57:04
And it is the normal.
57:05
So do not, do not allow yourself to fall behind on technology and think, oh, I'll catch up later.
57:14
But I will say your competitive edge is still you as a human.
57:17
You know, so use all of those things to connect and do automate and all of that.
57:21
But but you as a human it is you're the competitive edge.
57:24
So I think as much as we're going to continue to see technology increase and become like technology
57:30
becomes fintech and all that kind of stuff.
57:32
But you're going to be competitive if you can provide the best customer experience through relationships.
57:37
The best quote I know on that and I'm stealing this from Sue Woodard, a total expert.
57:41
She said, technology is not going to replace people in this industry in our lifetime.
57:46
But the people who embrace technology will replace the people who do not.
57:51
Yeah, I love that.
57:52
I just talked to Sue like two weeks ago.
57:55
And my favorite quote on that is from my friend Mark Schaeffer who wrote the marketing rebellion,
58:01
which is the most human company we'll win.
58:04
And let's not let's not put automation in the place to your point,
58:07
Kristen of human connection because in my case, what failed was that the incorrect use of automation
58:14
because it was used in a in a sequence that was out of order and created a huge disconnect.
58:20
And that's where I see too many people defaulting.
58:23
You know, like how many times have you heard L.O.'s like, can we just automate that?
58:26
Can we just automate that?
58:27
You know, wait a minute, wait a minute.
58:29
You can't automate relationships.
58:31
You know what I mean?
58:32
And that's what I think people are unfortunately trying to do.
58:35
So let's be aware of that.
58:36
In a lot of instances that automation is worse than no automation at all.
58:40
100% 100% yep, yep, absolutely because you can't recover from that.
58:44
You're like, sorry, man, no way.
58:46
All right, you guys, this was an awesome interview.
58:49
Let's make sure we can tell people how they can learn more about formerly social survey,
58:53
who we've had on the show before.
58:55
Now experience.com with a wonderful addition of you two lovely ladies.
58:59
If they want to learn more, if you want to learn more about the customer experience,
59:02
whether you're the individual loan officer,
59:04
you're an executive, you're VP or something, you're like,
59:06
hey, I need to level up my consumer experience.
59:09
We want to send them to experience.com, right?
59:14
Yes.
59:14
Experience.com.
59:16
Yeah.
59:16
Okay, all right.
59:18
Follow us on LinkedIn.
59:19
Yep.
59:20
Okay.
59:21
Now what's cool about that is you've got resources,
59:23
you know what I mean, articles and stuff.
59:24
You've got this CX report that I talked about.
59:26
So if you want to dig deeper on this, you go there and you download that report,
59:29
the ROI of CX, check out the create wow puzzle of customer experiences.
59:34
Some good data on there about how this is impacting positive business outcome.
59:38
So thank you so much.
59:40
Both of you for being here.
59:41
I appreciate it very much.
59:42
Thank you so much for having us.
59:44
Thanks for like, hope to see you again soon.
59:46
For sure, for sure.
59:47
And listeners, you know what to do if you like this episode.
59:49
Hey, leave us a review.
59:50
It helps us reach more people.
59:52
Appreciate you tuning in.
59:53
We'll see you on the next one.
59:54
Bye for now.
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