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How to Optimize Your Client Experience to Get More Referrals · Mortgage Marketing Radio

0:00
Hey, what's up listeners? Happy New Year. Welcome to 2024. My question for you is, are you ready?
0:19
Hopefully you're not getting caught flat-footed. Here we are. I'm recording this on January 4th.
0:23
And is your plan in place? Are your key activities clear, scheduled, mapped out? Do you have your milestones
0:32
in place? Your method for tracking your progress? How do you know if you're on track? How do you know if
0:37
you're actually making progress and not just being busy? Those are some of the kind of questions we
0:41
talk about in our weekly mastermind and coaching calls for members of our my agent classes group.
0:47
That and a lot more. If you're looking for some direction, if you're looking for accountability,
0:52
maybe you'd want to consider becoming a member because we do a lot more than just go into our local
0:56
market and teach Asian classes to attract instead of chase realtors to facilitate trust,
1:02
to reduce the, how can I say, resistance and increase the conversations that lead to referrals.
1:10
Case in point, another success story from one of our longtime members, Carmella. What is up?
1:16
She just posted this yesterday. I mean, January 3rd. She's already winning. She's already
1:22
creating momentum. She had a two-hour meeting with three top agents and she shared with them
1:28
what's called our 90-day CMA. What that is, it's a video idea that takes to Google Earth along with
1:34
a CMA on seller net sheet. We got it from a real to friend of mine in Florida. When he executed 72 CMAs
1:42
over 90 days, he listed 11 million and sold 9 million of that. What we're doing is showing the
1:47
agents how to take that copy of that idea and make it unique for their own purposes, for the unique
1:51
to their own area, make the adjustments they want to make to it, which Carmella did. She said,
1:55
we tweaked it and made it our own with some own, their own little custom marketing aspects to it.
2:01
These three top agents left her office super excited. Great way to start the new year. Way to jump
2:07
in. Way to create momentum. What are you waiting for? Learn more by going to mortgagemarketing.pro,
2:14
schedule a call with me and let's have a conversation and see if this is a right fit for you.
2:21
Okay, so before I introduce my special guest, I've got a question for you. Are you disappointed in
2:26
the amount of referrals you get? Do you get a lot of Google reviews, online reviews, right?
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You're four or five stars, but that hasn't really equated to a lot of referrals,
2:37
right? Coming from your past clients, maybe even coming from some of your referral partners.
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If you feel like that, today's conversation is for you because we are talking about the customer
2:48
experience and how to identify why you may be getting online reviews. Your clients may be saying
2:54
they love you, but they're not referring you. If you're not getting the amount of referrals
2:59
that you want, something in the process is broken and we're going to unpack that for you here today
3:06
with my special guest, Mike Seminary, who is the director of customer experience for the
3:15
Strattmore group. What Mike does is he oversees the customer experience programs at Strattmore,
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collectively known as Mortgage EXP. What they do is they survey tens of thousands of buyers,
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people who have gone through a mortgage transaction, through their mortgage CXEX,
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mortgage wow and strategic X programs, surveys, benchmarking, reporting, reputation management,
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referral partner surveys, and more. If anybody's got the true metadata on what actually drives
3:50
referrals, Mike and his team over at Strattmore group do. We are linking up some great resources
3:58
in the show notes. This is where you want to definitely tap through and go to the show note links
4:02
because Mike is sharing his seven commandments for optimizing the customer experience. Where is the
4:07
breakdown? How do you identify it? Most importantly, how do you fix it? Do you have the courage to
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contact your past clients and not just get the warm fuzzies about how they loved you,
4:19
but actually unpack and discover where it went wrong. If there's any quick, easy way to actually
4:28
grow your business and win, it's through the wow factor experience. I know that term gets a lot of
4:34
lip service, wow factor, but in today's conversation, you're going to hear exactly what that looks
4:40
like and sounds like from your actual client experience side, not from your side. I know you're
4:46
going to enjoy this episode. Check the links in the show notes. If you think this episode is great,
4:50
which I know you will, please share it with somebody that you think we'll find it valuable too.
4:54
Without further ado, let's get into this week's show. Mike, welcome to show.
4:59
Thank you. Great to be here, Jeff. Great to connect with you. For those who may not be familiar
5:04
with who you are, why don't you tell us what do you do and what are you all about?
5:08
Yeah, so I've been in the market industry about 23 years now, but it's been split a little bit
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between origination. I started off as a loan officer work with Wells Fargo and citizens and
5:22
a few other lenders. I eventually moved over to this tech side and was one of the early employees
5:28
that philosophy and so helped kind of bring that company up. And then about seven, eight years
5:33
ago, Stratmore reached out Stratmore for anyone who's unfamiliar is consulting firm. We do a lot of
5:40
M&A, a lot of corporate strategy. Just a lot of, we're very well known for our data and our programs
5:48
with the MBA and whatnot. Anyway, reached out and said, you have got a good background in both tech
5:54
and mortgage. We need somebody to run our CX initiatives, our customer experience stuff.
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And so at the time, we had this this great, but it was about two or three years old at the time.
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So this was back in 2013. Garth Graham was one of the people who kind of pioneered this idea.
6:14
Why aren't we doing more deeper research into the customer experience? Nobody's really doing it.
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I mean, you had JD Powers kind of doing their once a year thing and ad hoc things for a few lenders,
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but no one is really kind of going deep and asking a lot of questions every day on every loan.
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And so we thought there was a huge opportunity there, got into the space. And for a number of years,
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did really well in providing data. But we got to the point where lenders were not really doing
6:43
anything with the data. They were just kind of sitting on a pile of great information and not
6:49
operationalizing it. And so we've moved in the past few years into really creating
6:56
digestible, actionable reporting where every single LLO, every single processor, all of their
7:02
managers, everyone gets a personal view into how they're performing what their impact on
7:07
the customer experience and a clear path forward to how they can improve. That's been a game
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changer. And I've been proud to kind of lead that effort as we roll out these new reports,
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these new products. Well, I love what you focus on, which is CX customer experience.
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And I think that you the fact that you opened up with the commentary around,
7:32
there was data, there was information, but nobody was really doing much with it. And I actually
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kind of want to enter the conversations there because I know earlier this or last year end of 2023,
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I'm on your LinkedIn profile, we're going to link all this up in the show notes so people can follow
7:46
you because you do put out some great content. But one of the things you pointed out on there is
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the question you asked was, what are you doing to create wow for your borrowers?
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And the challenge with that is to your point, kind of a moment ago, is like, we've heard that
8:03
for a long time, right? Like the whole CX thing. We know we should be wowing our clients,
8:07
but I don't really see that necessarily showing up in the real world, right? And so I'm curious
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if you maybe we'll start with like highlighting what would be some
8:17
ways from your data, from your research, and we're going to continue to unpack this. But what would
8:23
be some easy points of entry for people who are looking to enhance their customer experience?
8:29
Yeah, I mean, the data that we have is almost counterintuitive because when you talk about wow,
8:35
you think about, what did I go over and above and beyond? And there are examples of that like
8:41
the LOs who go and find insurance quotes for their clients. That's not part of their job
8:46
description, but they did it and it wowed the customer. But really what our data shows is that
8:51
it's the process. It's the touch points, the communication points in the process that determine
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the wow or not wow. Basically, will that person be somebody who word of mouth unprompted,
9:03
goes out and recommends you? So the, you know, just the other day I was reading two,
9:08
two testimonials aside by side one said, this person answered all my questions, was a great
9:13
person loved dealing with them. The other person said, this person was great, we loved them. But
9:21
the back, you know, the back office didn't return my calls, asked for the same document multiple
9:26
times. I never even got a list of what I needed to provide. They were just like, they looked like
9:31
fools asking me three times for the same thing. And when you, when you put yourself in the LOs shoes,
9:37
the LOs could say, well, that's not my fault. That's their job, their fault. But when you
9:44
peel it back a little bit, it's like, you're the one losing the referral because that happened.
9:49
So the LOs were trying to change the conversation from the LOs saying, this is not my fault,
9:56
or this is not my responsibility to, oh my gosh, if this determines whether somebody
10:02
refers business or not to me, it's in my best interest to keep a close eye on those things. And
10:07
so all the data we have says, you, you know, you, we talk about NPS a lot, right? Well, you recommend.
10:14
If you don't call somebody prior to closing and have a conversation with them about about
10:18
the final numbers, NPS drops to 95 points. So one of the first things I will recommend to a
10:24
lender is don't, don't just call the person and say, hey, do you want to go over those numbers
10:31
and leave a voicemail and say, hey, call me if you have questions. That's not good enough. The,
10:36
the habit, the new kind of lifestyle you need to lean into is, hey, Bar, this is really important
10:43
that we do this. I need 15 minutes of your time. Let me know when we can schedule that and go
10:48
over those numbers. And just making that a habit on everything alone you do, you'll never have
10:53
somebody say they, they didn't get to go over the numbers. Right. If you have a, you know,
10:59
checklist at the beginning going out, that's usually automated these days, right? But sometimes
11:04
they fall into spam. Sometimes the bar whenever opens it. Sometimes their spouse opens it, but they
11:09
don't. And so you have, what I see in best practice, right, is the LOs that do a really good job
11:16
at this. They just make it a habit every time, you know, after they get the application in,
11:22
that automated thing goes out, they call or text or say, hey, it's important that you see this
11:27
email. Look for it. If you don't see it, let me know. I want to make sure you get it because
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it's a really important thing to make sure that you're delighted at the end. So you drop these
11:35
little hints. You, you make habits, even in busy times, like people should not have a problem
11:42
with it right now, right? But even in busy times, some of the, a lot of these things are doable
11:46
if you start the habit now. Right. All right. So there's some good nuggets in there just to be
11:51
clear for those listening, NPS refers to net promoter score. What that asks is the question is
11:56
scale 1 to 10. How likely are you to recommend us, right, to friends or family? So that's kind of
12:00
a metric for tracking. Is that correct? It is, it is. And it's, it's, it's the baseline of
12:07
will you get repeat and referral business from the person, but it's not all about that NPS score
12:12
either. It's, that's like the table stakes. That's what you have to focus on first a pristine
12:17
process. You get the anything in the process goes wrong. And by the way, 55% of loans have some,
12:23
one of the seven things we look at and the seven commandments go wrong. And it destroys your,
12:29
your chance to referral or repeat business. And so the, the why has to be, the LOS have to start
12:35
understanding. This is so important that this will determine whether I get referrals or not.
12:42
Doesn't matter if I get a testimonial. And by the way, not, not just referrals. And I know you
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know this, but I'm just calling this to the attention of the listener. Referels are obviously great,
12:51
but let's not forget about those online reviews, right? The Google business profile or wherever else.
12:55
You're looking to get those five star, right? If you want to get that consumer direct bubbling up.
12:59
Yeah, it's interesting. You bring that up because that's actually, I see a little bit of a misperception
13:04
on those that we're kind of moving into a post online review phase. Like people still read online
13:11
reviews, but they're not reading them to choose a lender. They're, they're reading them to verify
13:16
or confirm that they're making a good choice. So the top, they're not filling top of funnel the way
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a lot of people used to think. So you have, and you have a lot of companies out there from, say,
13:26
2015 on who came on and said, Hey, if you put your name and your testimonies out in enough places,
13:33
you'll just get flooded with leads. That never never really happened for most people. And so they
13:38
started asking why? Well, the why is you can have somebody who loves you, but didn't have a great
13:44
process. Same way, if you go to a restaurant, mediocre food, great waiter, you're going to go out of
13:51
your way to talk about that restaurant in a good way, probably not, right? Just because they had a great
13:55
waiter that you have to have a good process A to Z. If you want them unprompted. I keep saying
14:04
unprompted, but the testimonial does not equal referral. The testimonial does not equal
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word of mouth referral. If you think about the experiences you've had, I would say a nice thing
14:17
about the person at the counter at the store I went to. Sure. If you asked me for a testimonial,
14:23
great. And my unprompted going to my friends and family saying, you wouldn't believe how great
14:28
this story is. How great this experience was. There's a difference between the two.
14:35
And the difference, but we've seen in the data is that when the process is great, those people
14:40
unprompted go out because a market's loan, you don't go into a market's loan thinking it's going
14:46
to be all butterflies and unicorns. You think you're expecting a little bit of pain, right? A
14:50
little bit of resistance, anxiety, stress, and it's like going to a dentist. If I go to a dentist,
14:56
and I get a, you know, I know it's going to be uncomfortable. If they make it smooth,
15:02
if I get a clean bill of health, that's a win. Even though it was uncomfortable.
15:07
So it's basically beating that baseline expectation is what we need to do. The expectation is
15:14
they're going to keep coming after me for more documents. They're going to keep telling me,
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no, we're not approved yet. No, this isn't right. No, this, you know, you're expecting all that.
15:22
If you kind of just remove some of those landmines, people are delighted. It's above their
15:28
expectation. So it's multiple things going on here. There's a lot unpacking this conversation.
15:34
Number one, it sounds like what you're saying is set the expectations clearly from the beginning.
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Meaning, I remember years ago, there's a, you may know of this guy, Joe Stump, real estate sales trainer
15:44
in the area, Orange County, California, or sorry, you're in LA, but nearby. I'm from Orange County.
15:50
I remember, Joe, back in the day, one of these scripts he used to use was taking on this metaphor of
15:56
like getting, when you're on the plane as a passenger, you're a passenger. And I'm the captain.
16:03
And there may be some turbulence along the way. However, if there's turbulence, I'm going to let
16:08
you know about it. And I'm going to come over the loudspeaker and let you know it's time to put
16:11
on your seat belt, the stain, your seat, and I'm still in charge. And I'm going to get you to our
16:14
destination. And I thought that was a great representation of like this transaction setting the
16:19
expectations. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we both know Sue Woodard and one of the things
16:24
she always used to do as a loan officer back in the day was give people, this is the laundry list
16:29
of things that could happen. And so if one of them did, she would say, hey, number 17, we talked about
16:36
it. It happened on the list. Number 17. But that's, you know, when you set the expectation like
16:42
that one of the best things that I think it all can do is, you know, a lot of the things we talk
16:48
about in terms of great customer experience comes down to communication. Right. And I always like to
16:54
talk also about habits because you're not going to change by setting goals and going after the goal.
17:00
You're going to change by creating a lifestyle that's different. Thanks. You know, I tell them
17:06
the cabits. There you go. So, but but one of the best things you can do is an LLO is say to the
17:12
customer, give them the framework, say, this is how I plan to communicate with you. I want to know
17:19
if it's okay with you. These three milestones are super important. I'm going to give you a phone call
17:24
and we're going to have a conversation. I'm going to congratulate you with that we hit that milestone.
17:28
And these things are not as important. They're just updates weekly update. Maybe I'm going to
17:33
email you those. If I need something from you, I want to be able to text you because I need it
17:37
quickly. How does that work for you? And then if you stick to that, you've already just given
17:43
them so much peace of mind because the second a bar where calls you, you've already lost to get
17:48
an update. Yeah. And so that's just one of the great habits you can do right from the start.
17:54
Yeah. So you're saying kind of you reference a checklist, a process, a diagram, an infographic,
18:03
right? But something that gives them that visual representation of this is our journey from
18:07
loan app to closing. Yeah. Okay. That makes a lot of sense. Now, I know for a fact a lot of people
18:13
listening to this haven't thought through this to the degree, I think you're putting forth that
18:21
people need to, meaning this can't just be let's let's half-ass this and let's throw something
18:26
together, right? This needs to be really thoughtfully architected. Would you agree? I would, but I
18:32
would add to it that there's almost 90% of loan officers that I talk to, they think they're already
18:39
doing a great job. So that's the real barrier is that they think, how do they know though?
18:44
Maybe it's somebody else. Maybe it's not me because my customers love me and they have no
18:48
reference for if they're doing the right thing. So that's where many plug for the program I run
18:56
in Stratmore's called Mortgage CX. But the idea is that you got to empower them with knowledge,
19:03
remove the blind spots because you'll have an LLO who gets a 10 out of 10 rating for a borrower,
19:08
but didn't get a call prior to closing. Did you got asked for the same doc twice? They thought
19:14
the documentation was unreasonable because the processor never gave them the why for why they were
19:19
asking for a document. So you miss those things and the LLO needs a visibility of that if anything's
19:25
ever going to change. So our program, we go deep, we ask a lot of questions, we give those
19:30
personal reports with a clear path forward for every single person, every LLO is going to see,
19:36
well this is how I rank nationally, this is how far ahead or behind the company I am in this
19:41
specific area like calling prior to closing, this is how I compared the national average, this is
19:46
how I compared the best in class. So they have that gauge of, you know, it's pink on the report if
19:52
they are behind the national average, so they know where to focus. So you have people kind of
19:57
self-correcting and making changes, making habit changes and that ultimately brings everything up.
20:03
Are you saying Stratmore CX, this is something that you provide for loan officers is some type of
20:08
a program. By the way, obviously you and I didn't, you know, kind of prep for this ahead of time.
20:13
This is something that loan officers or companies subscribe to to better identify their
20:18
weak areas, their strong points, but actually are you collecting real client feedback?
20:23
Yeah, we're doing, we're every single loan that closes for the clients that are part of the
20:28
program. And you know, some of the clients said I won't name names but have been winners of
20:33
JD Power in the past several years for customer satisfaction. So we have some great, I mean,
20:41
some clients who this has worked really well for and they're riding it all the way.
20:46
So yeah, so it's actually called mortgage CX. Okay. It's flown a little bit under the radar,
20:53
you know, compared to JD Power because while we don't we don't do cars, we don't do, you know,
20:59
a laundry list of things that they do. But yeah, it's, and it's something we don't heavily
21:04
advertise. But the clients we work with are really top tier in the mortgage industry.
21:11
So it's more at a company or enterprise level than individual LL, correct?
21:15
It is. Yeah, it is. But I see it right now in the page. I'm going to link it up in the show notes
21:21
for those who want to go check it out. Stratmoregroup.com forward slash mortgage CX
21:26
looking at it right there. That's really cool. I think this is such an important part of
21:31
differentiation and being relevant, right? And what popped into my mind earlier today
21:38
and kind of thinking about our conversation is, yeah, I'm a big fan of process. And I think,
21:44
you know, especially as an originator, it's all, you know, you're basically running your own
21:48
business. Yes, you've got your ops team or whatever, whether that's broker, employee situation,
21:51
whatever. And, you know, you know, I'm sure you've heard this before, the degree to which a
21:56
loan officer can individually influence the internal process at a company to do. But I think
22:01
there are ways to do that. I remember when I was an originator, whether that was taking good,
22:05
awesome care of my processor, underwriter, ops, closer, whatever, like there's ways to grease the
22:10
wheel a little bit. If you're looking to level up that customer experience. But I want to go back
22:16
to the, like, let's go back to the wow thing that we opened it. And we kind of weave in the
22:19
seven commandments and things like that because you kind of touched on this and the difference
22:24
between an online review, like a Google review versus a wow factor experience. What you're saying is
22:30
those are really two different things, right? They are. Yeah, they are. They, well, so I'll give you
22:36
some stats here. So we do hundreds of thousands of surveys every year. So we, this pretty rich,
22:43
deep data. We ask everybody to rate their loan officer on several different attributes. How
22:49
caring were they? How well did they explain the process? How responsive were they? How knowledgeable
22:55
were they? So, and we asked that of the processor too. When we roll those average scores up into,
23:01
into kind of like an aggregate score for every loan officer, the loan officer scores on 100 point
23:08
scale, 95 out of 100 is the average. It's the average. So everybody does a great job. If you're a
23:16
loan officer, you don't do a great job. You're not going to be very long in that job, right? It's
23:21
their job to be liked. It's their job to cobble and cradle the customer a little bit. A lot of them
23:30
think it's their job to throw everybody else under the bus so they look good. But you know, that's
23:36
the part of the job description is that you are to be liked by the customer. And so naturally,
23:41
everybody, even if it's a tough experience, you go, you sit in the trenches with somebody for three
23:46
months, you're going to bond with them, right? So anyway, everybody likes their loan officer.
23:53
It doesn't make you unique. It's not a differentiator. Ergo, everybody gets testimonials.
24:02
So I think two out of three surveys have testimonials on them. Almost everybody still has a
24:09
10 out of 10, you know, LOs. Rarely does somebody get a 9. But 9's and 10's are kind of the average
24:15
for LOs. But the process is what actually determines. So you overlay that with NPS and it's a
24:21
totally different story. Very interesting. So they're kind of like, some sins are forgiven
24:32
because I like my loan officer so much. I would say the opposite actually. Sins are not forgiven
24:39
for the company or for the loan officer. You always like your loan officer standard.
24:45
But you're not going to go out out of your way to tell people what a great experience you had.
24:50
So it's like, hey, man, I really love my LL. But that process sucks. I guess, you know,
24:54
would never do that again. Exactly. It was painful. It was tough. It was hard.
24:59
Instead of what you want them to say is it was easy. It was so great. You should do it with them.
25:06
You ever had a bad experience? You all you need to get along? Go with them because it was so easy,
25:10
so great. All right. Let me jump into your 7 Commandments. And I'm going to link this up and show
25:15
this article you wrote because what I want to do is I want to just maybe bring to the surface a
25:19
couple of things that LOs can, you know, that they can directly influence and maybe move to the top
25:26
of the funnel for their attention. You mentioned a checklist, one of those things in the beginning,
25:31
kind of like set the expectations for our flight path and things like that, right? What else
25:35
would come up for you on that? Yeah. So I would say, I still got you. I mean, I'm here.
25:43
You still got me. Sorry. My, my lights just came on. I told you.
25:48
So we're being on the house. Yeah. So my thing keeps flickering. I hope you're able to edit this
25:56
a little bit. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Let me put it back on the right screen then.
26:03
I'm all for editing. So don't don't feel bad about that at all. Okay. Great.
26:10
So remind me the question again. So you've referenced having a checklist at the beginning,
26:16
right? To kind of set the stage in their flight path for what to expect. But what are some other areas
26:21
where LOs can move certain balls forward, right? More easily than perhaps some others.
26:27
Yeah. I think one of the big ones that comes up is asked for the same document multiple times.
26:32
And I think the national averages of around 28 to 30% for that. So it's happening
26:38
on a lot of loans. Now you have people kind of dismiss that one because, well, it's a multiple,
26:44
you know, the loan took a little longer. We had to get a refreshed document or we had to ask for
26:50
page 8 of the bank statement or whatever. But but when you look at that, even, you know, you
26:56
overlaid out again with NPS, people are annoyed by it. No, it's not something that people don't
27:01
care about it. They do care about it. It's about a 50 point drop in NPS when that happens. So
27:06
one of the things that should just become a habit is the first conversation you have with people
27:12
just say, Hey, these things usually take more than a month and we need a month's worth of
27:17
the pay stub. So as you get your next one, just plan on giving it to me when you get your next
27:21
based up. If you're going to give me a bank statement and it's not automated or whatever,
27:26
make sure that all pages, even blank pages are included. So in that case, if somebody asks again
27:32
for a refresh or for page 8, you've already asked them. And so they're definitely not holding that
27:36
against you. So that takes care of that piece of it. But one of the big ones where people
27:44
trip up here is with the portals. So the LOs who like to really hand hold white glove
27:51
the process, they'll say, no, just send it to me. I'll upload it to the portal. Don't worry about it.
27:57
And they given the document. LOs sits on it for two days. The borrower gets an automated
28:03
email saying, Hey, we haven't gotten this and all of a sudden they're having a bad experience.
28:09
Exactly. So that happens a lot. But the 30%, I mean, part of it is just poor organization,
28:16
you know, bad handoffs from the LO to the processing team. The processing team, you know,
28:21
when it 2021, it was especially bad, right? Because everybody was just running around like a chicken
28:27
with their head cut off. Couldn't keep things organized. But that's a big one.
28:33
Dot collection and communication really a lot of these things revolve around. The one that's
28:38
surprised to me lately is the timeframe expectations. So you would think in a market like we're in,
28:46
that wouldn't even be on the radar because everybody has got one loan at a time. But I think what's
28:54
happened is partly LOs are scrapping for business. They're not turning down loans. They're trying to
29:01
make people happy. Oh, can you get this done in 15 days? Sure. Sure. I can. Fingers crossed.
29:07
And in the fulfillment teams, I've talked to some of them. They get the loans and they're like,
29:11
wait a second. This is a hairy deal. How are we going to close it so quickly? So the timeframe
29:16
expectations always buy yourself some time. Always pad that under, under promise over deliver.
29:25
Yeah, but man, the realtors pressuring me like that's my, you see people posting
29:30
closed in eight days, you know, all that pressure. It is tough. A lot of advertising out there too
29:37
is same day approval and all that kind of stuff. How do you compete with that, right?
29:43
I mean, I think it's just having the more communicative you are, the more you can
29:50
get the borrower on your side early, emotionally, all of that, the more they'll just stick with you.
29:58
Well, I'm reading one of your little finer points here on your seven commandments, which
30:03
again, we'll link up. But when it goes, when it goes wrong, like close, not closing an expected
30:08
timeframe, this is such a classic dealt with multiple people who are not on the same page.
30:14
Like that must happen. I don't know if you have data on what percentage of loans that happens on.
30:19
I don't have it's a lot. Yeah. Right. It was back to communication.
30:24
It comes back to your internal process. And I'm thinking of some of the people that I know that
30:27
have been on the show that I've interviewed who have very well structured, well-defined processes.
30:31
Those things that it's not like it's never done, right? You're always looking to refine and
30:37
enhance and gather that customer feedback to find the holes. And you've got to be willing to take
30:43
some of the bad news, right? Yeah. I mean, I did, I did alone years ago, but it was with rocket,
30:50
right? One of the best ones out there. And I've got passed around to five different people,
30:55
which is kind of their thing. It's a little more factory line, but people were going on vacation,
31:00
people were not calling me back. And it was just, it was not a great experience because of that,
31:05
you know, not to throw them under the bus here, but it's an example of you can have a great company
31:12
with great procedures and still have a bad experience. And so I will probably not do along with
31:19
them again because of that. Would you be willing to pay a slightly higher price because of that
31:24
bad experience? I think, you know, knowing what I know, I don't even go to lenders that don't have
31:34
great customer experiences. So I would be, so when I whittle it down, people sometimes ask me,
31:41
who should I do along with? Well, I have all the data. So I could tell you these are the top ones
31:46
who you're most likely to have a good experience with, choose between them. So in that sense,
31:51
because I wouldn't rate shop 15 lenders to get the best rate. I would look at the best, you know,
31:57
and this is a great example. This is how people shop the same thing with cars. You don't go
32:01
online and say, what's the best car? You kind of have an idea, you have to friends family,
32:07
you see it on the road, you then narrow it down and choose between the three. And that's how people
32:12
use reviews too, is they go and look at the three top choices and they're like, well,
32:18
this is the person I felt best with in my conversation. Because I think when it comes to rate,
32:26
until you get the application, till they know your credit score, till you do all that stuff,
32:30
nobody's promising you a rate that they can promise, until they know all that stuff.
32:37
So I think it's tough to, when we ask people, why do you choose your lender, guess what
32:42
percentage say rate shop? You know, best rate, best interest rate is 2%.
32:47
What do they usually say? They say, I knew them from a previous relationship. I knew the L.O.
32:56
I was referred by a realtor. I was referred by a friend. That makes up 90% right there.
33:05
Best interest rate, best programs, testimonials about 3%.
33:09
If I can, I want to pause there a second on that. I don't know if you've got any data on this,
33:15
but obviously in this new world, we're in this digital social media space. I'm wondering if you
33:21
have any insights or data back to that exact point of how I chose my lender. I knew them,
33:26
I trusted them. I was referred by the real estate agent. Do you have any visibility or just
33:30
commentary around online presence, personal brand, kind of stuff today?
33:35
Based on that data that I just mentioned, it's really low. Now, I want to be clear here.
33:45
I want to say testimonials have no value because they do. 40 to 50% of people read the testimonial
33:53
to confirm their choice. And if you're a loan officer and you're trying to go out for getting
33:58
new realtors, it doesn't hurt to have testimonials to wave in front of them and say, here's why
34:03
you should work with me. That's always a good thing. But the value is pretty much limited to that.
34:08
They're not filling your top of funnel. Your personal brand is table stakes in the sense that
34:14
if realtor gives your name out and they look you up and they can't find you, that's a red flag.
34:20
You got to have a presence. And like I said, 90% of reviews are really good reviews.
34:28
Probably 98% of reviews are good reviews because the testimonies are good.
34:34
Good testimonies. So it's hard to find anything bad about a loan officer. So are you going to go
34:40
and say, well, this person has 225 reviews. This person has 198 reviews. Am I going to pick the one
34:47
with more reviews? The one with the picture I like better? The one I actually talked to them both
34:52
and how to better feel for them? Do I go back to my realtor and say, well, which one do you like better?
34:58
That's how those decisions end up being made. It's not who has a better online presence because
35:08
most people have an online presence today. It's not a differentiator. And most people have
35:13
really high star reviews. So it becomes less important in terms of making a choice than
35:23
just saying, hey, it's time for me to make a choice. Who do you really recommend?
35:30
Yeah. Most realtor's do that.
35:33
Right. It reminds me of a study that I read from Thousand Walk Consulting where they had a small
35:38
sample size of the audience, the interviewed, and it was all about directing the financing
35:44
on the transaction. And it showed that about half of the time, even though the buyer showed up
35:50
with a pre-approval from another lender, they went with the realtor's recommendation.
35:55
That's how it happens in the real world. It is. It's even more pronounced in first time on
36:00
buyers, too, because they're really reliant on those recommendations. I'll send you graphs on both
36:04
of those. I don't know if you have a way to show them on this, but that's, it's very interesting.
36:12
Well, this is just interesting, also because of a conversation I had earlier today. And in the
36:15
last few minutes we have, maybe we'll geek out on this for a second, is clearly there's this whole
36:22
movement of building your personal brand, having content, video content, et cetera, being a modern
36:28
next-gen mortgage originator. And it's interesting to talk to somebody like you, though, who has data
36:34
from thousands of originations of what was the primary source of you choosing your lender.
36:41
And you're saying that in the ranking of online videos, content, whatever, even though there are
36:46
success stories, and I've had them on this, numbers-wise, collectively, that's still single digits.
36:54
Yeah. I mean, those are the unicorns. They exist. You're right. They do exist. People,
36:59
there are people who say, I get most of my business from Google Location Search.
37:06
They're really rare. Those people are really rare. Most of the time, and if you think about it,
37:12
it passes the sniff test of, okay, I'm going out to buy a pair of shoes and I need recommendations.
37:19
I'll go read reviews on different pairs of shoes, right? But if I'm going to spend more money,
37:23
then I have my entire life on something. Sure. That makes me a little more gun shy. Like, I don't
37:29
want to pull the trigger unless I'm for sure, for sure. And then I'm going to talk to anybody I know
37:36
who I trust. And so it's the trusted relationships on the big ticket purchases that you end up
37:42
believing in going with. That's funny. I'm thinking of a couple of people we could have on and
37:47
like have a debate about this, right? Well, I mean, I feel like the debate will be anecdotal versus
37:55
metadata. And I have the metadata and people will come on and be like, no, that's not my experience.
38:00
But in both are true, right? That's actually the best point, both are true. Let me if I
38:06
real quick, then because I know you have a pretty deep connection into the industry and you see
38:11
a broad section as well. I'm sorry to throw this curveball at you, but I'm curious if you have any
38:16
commentary around what the buyer experience will be regards to the NAR lawsuit and how that might play
38:23
a role. Probably no comment would be the best. Too early to tell. Yeah.
38:32
I mean, yeah. Okay, we can leave it at that. It's not even settled yet, but we still have some
38:37
implications for sure. Yeah, yeah. I have personal thoughts, but probably not best to share them
38:45
at this stage. Oh, it's always a curveball. And like, you don't have to
38:50
it's America, right? So that's awesome. Well, look at we could keep talking forever about CX.
38:56
And I know you've got a lot going on today and you've made time from your busy schedule to be
39:00
available for this conversation. What I wanted to do was bring this to the surface, especially
39:04
at this time of the year, like you said, there's some bandwidth right now. You might want to look at
39:08
your processes and procedures for customer experience and wow factor. You've got some great
39:12
suggestions here. I'm going to link up your seven commandments in the in the show notes.
39:16
Also, the link directly to the Stratmore Mortgage CX. Any other places we want to direct people?
39:23
LinkedIn profile or what? Well, you know, I do a monthly article that's called the monthly CX
39:29
tip. And that's on the Stratmore website. So if you're interested in that, you can either reach
39:34
me at mic.semonariatstratmoregroup.com and just say add me to the list. But we've got a lot of people
39:41
on there that are enjoying those those monthly articles. So we'd love to have you.
39:48
Yeah, I mean, look at it's, you know, based on what we all know, some of the things you talk through
39:53
here today, like the old quote of like, it's easy to win, right? I mean, I don't want to be
39:57
cliche or whatnot, but let's just face it. One of the easier ways to win is having a wow factor
40:01
experience, you know? Yeah. So why not? And the and the wild begins with the process. It's so
40:08
counterintuitive to most people because every most elbows say, I'm the center of the universe.
40:13
I'm the king of the world. And what I do affects whether, you know, only what I do will affect
40:19
that person's referral business. And it's it expands way greater than that. It's the process
40:26
that that that determines everything. I would love to see this for the list of people listening
40:30
right now. All your past 10 or 20 clients and just ask them, okay, I know you love me, but how
40:36
is the process? Where were the pain points? Like, have the courage. And maybe you're not the best person.
40:41
Oh, but I that would be an interesting exercise. I would, you could even go a little bit further
40:46
and say, I, I know you love me. And what I found is that people who love me, but didn't have a great
40:55
process in some area, didn't go out of their way to just talk about how great it was for everybody.
41:01
And so I want to uncover what could have been what not been. And if you say, what could have
41:06
been better, most people say, I don't know what could have been better, but there are things that
41:11
I want to be doing or maybe throw some ideas at them or something. This is what I'm planning
41:16
on doing. What that have wowed you? Would that have made a difference? Would that have just like?
41:22
Yeah. And it also plants an idea in their mind, oh, but that they haven't given you anybody.
41:28
They haven't they haven't referred anybody, but it doesn't come out and say it.
41:33
I think a good place to start on that once again is the Seven Commandments article, which by
41:37
now you should have already tapped on that link. And go to that because that'll give some entry
41:42
points of proposing those topics to those those clients that you interview. So my thanks so much
41:49
appreciate it. Yeah, pleasure. Yeah, let's stay in touch listeners. You know what to do if you
41:52
found this episode useful, please share it with others and like it. And we'll see you on the next one.
41:57
Bye for now. All right. Well, thanks for tuning into today's episode. Hey,
42:00
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