Customer relationship management software is a technology that helps business owners from all industries better organize contact information and data in a centralized location, as well as manage, track, and automate many aspects of their business, with a main focus on improving customer interactions and relationships. While many CRM platforms are available on the market today, not all are created equal or provide the tools your business needs to achieve your goals. As a loan officer, you want to look for a mortgage-industry CRM that gives you the tools you need.
Here we take a look at some of the top tools to look for and how they can benefit your business.
Key Takeaways
- While standard CRM platforms can offer a wide range of tools to help a business grow, they may not offer all the specific tools that you, as a loan officer, really need but rather offer tools that you will never provide any benefit for your business.
- Mortgage-industry CRMs focus on the specific tools that are unique to mortgage companies, such as regulatory compliance and electronic signatures.
What to look for in a mortgage CRM
When you make the decision to add a CRM to your mortgage business, there are a few things to consider. First, you want to determine your business goals and what tools are going to be a necessary component of a quality CRM. The right tools should allow you to increase your business productivity and lead generation while also improving your relationships with your customers. Here we look at some of the top CRM tools that will benefit loan officers, mortgage brokers, and all mortgage professionals.
1. Mortgage lead generation
Lead generation is essential for all mortgage professionals and the right CRM provides an array of tools designed to help your business create a steady flow of new leads. By direct integration with current lead streams, such as your existing website, as well as lead generation companies like LendingTree or Zillow, you have the ability to significantly boost your existing lead generation.
2. Lead management and prioritization
While establishing a steady stream of leads is essential, lead quality and how you interact with the leads coming in is what really matters. A CRM with lead management, prioritization, and lead scoring helps to ensure that you are focusing your energy on quality leads that are more likely to convert, as well as connecting with your leads at the correct time to further boost conversion. Lead management and prioritization tools allow you to automatically sort incoming leads based on specific attributes and behavior and draw your attention to the ones most likely to convert. Once a lead converts, a lead management system helps to ensure you are connecting with clients at the correct time in order to further nurture the relationship.
3. Regulatory compliance management
The mortgage industry is governed by hundreds of laws and regulations that, as a loan officer, you must remain in compliance with. While tools like automated marketing emails and client data management are essential, when not meeting compliance they can result in hefty fines and legal fees.
In addition, spam guidelines often limit how many professional emails can be sent in one day before triggering a spam alert and sending your emails to a client’s spam folder. A CRM with compliance management will help ensure that you do not exceed this limit.
4. Integrations with other systems and tools
A quality CRM is only as powerful as its ability to integrate with your existing software platforms. For example, a CRM that easily connects with your website and landing pages allows for the automatic transfer of lead data directly into your CRM. Being able to integrate directly with your loan origination system, or LOS helps to reduce the need for hours of manual data entry.
5. A power dialer
As a loan officer, chances are you have spent hours a day on the phone reaching out to new leads, current clients, real estate colleagues, lenders, and even lawyers. For most loan officers, phone calls can take up a majority of the workday, leaving you less time to focus on other areas of your business. A CRM that includes power dialer tools provides two significant benefits for mortgage professionals and loan officers. A power dialer allows you to create a calling list from your CRM contacts and automatically dials the first number. When you complete your call, the dialer moves on to the next number, eliminating the need to find a contact’s number and connect. If the line is busy or no one answers, the power dialer automatically moves to the next person on your list.
In addition to automatic dialing, a power dialer helps ensure that the communications are logged directly into your CRM, allowing you to easily track interactions with clients and connections.
6. Electronic signature
Mortgage lending can be a time-consuming process, not only for the lender but the borrower as well. Many documents require signatures by the borrowers who often means they must print out the form, sign it, scan it into their system, and then send them back. When your CRM offers electronic signatures, you can easily convert the documents to PDF format which allows the borrower to electronically sign them from anywhere. This not only makes it easier for the borrower but also reduces the need for in-person appointments for nothing more than simple signatures.
7. Secure document management and storage
Paper documentation is common in the mortgage industry, but the use of paper documentation is rapidly converting to the digital world. Paper documentation can easily be misplaced or damaged, requiring replacement. With digital documents and a CRM that provides a two-way authentication sign-in, you are able to better manage documentation, reduce the risk of damaged or misplaced documentation, and remain in compliance.
8. Remote and mobile access
Working on the road or away from the office is common for lenders and brokers in the mortgage industry. Having a CRM that provides mobile access either through a cloud-based platform or mobile app allows you to have your office at your fingertips, enabling you to connect with clients wherever you are.
9. Loan management
Processing a loan requires a large amount of data. When integrated with your LOS, the right CRM provides you with a centralized platform for all of your data, allowing you to track the loan process, generate reports in real-time, and help streamline the mortgage process for your borrowers.
10. Marketing automation
Creating and running email marketing campaigns can take up lots of hours each week, which can often be spent on other areas of your business. A CRM system with marketing automation helps ensure the right marketing campaigns are run at the right times to make the most of your marketing efforts. If your CRM offers marketing templates, this is an added bonus that can help make creating your marketing campaign even easier.
With marketing automation, you can set specific drip email campaigns to chosen groups of leads or based on specific interactions and triggers with your team, helping to streamline your workflows. For example, when a lead likes or reacts to a social media post you made, through integration and automation, you can set this action to automatically trigger an email that expands on that specific post while also sending a notification to your email highlighting the interaction.
11. The ability to grow with your business
When choosing a mortgage CRM, you want to ensure it can grow with your business. For example, your initial choice may allow for five unique users, but what happens when your business grows and you need ten users? Will this cost more, or will the CRM be unable to support that many users? These are important things to consider when choosing which CRM will work best for your business both now and in the future.
12. Automation for Email, Text, and Chat
When it comes to responding to new leads, even a one-minute delay can make all the difference. In today’s digital world, people are looking for information and response at the touch of a button. If they connect with your business after business hours, this could mean a delayed response. A mortgage CRM that offers email and/or text automation, such as triggering an immediate follow-up response, as well as an automatic chat feature, can help ensure that your leads are receiving the connection almost immediately.
For example, by connecting email automation within your CRM to your website, the CRM will automatically trigger an email or text messaging response when a new lead clicks through for more information. Similarly, an automated chat can answer simple questions and trigger an immediate phone or email response when it receives more in-depth questions.
13. Website and email integration
As we have mentioned above, choosing a mortgage CRM that easily integrates with your current website and email providers allows for greater lead generation and automation opportunities in all areas of your business, from lead and client management to delivering top-quality marketing campaigns through email integration.
14. Social media integration
Social CRMs allow for the integration of the existing tools within a CRM into your social media platforms. This allows you to gather data from your social media followers and help you deliver responses to customer questions or concerns in real-time, grow your brand awareness, engage with customers in real-time, reach a larger audience, and help nurture relationships. Through automation, you can trigger marketing posts on your social media platforms and specific responses based on social media interactions.
15. Reporting and analytics
One of the greatest tools a quality CRM offers a loan officer or mortgage professional is an in-depth analysis of their business, including what is working and what areas may need improvement to achieve the business’s goals. With robust reporting and analytics, your CRM can highlight team performance, customer satisfaction, mortgage pipeline management, and much more. This insight gives you the tools to make the necessary changes and reach your business goals.
The right tools for a quality mortgage CRM
Every CRM platform offers a wide range of tools to help you streamline your business, increase productivity, nurture your customer relationships, and drive leads to your mortgage business. However, not all CRM solutions will work for your needs. When choosing the right software for your business, you must determine which combination of these tools will provide the right functionality to help you reach the business success and growth you are looking for.
Choosing a CRM designed for the mortgage industry
At Good Vibe Squad, we are committed to loan officers, loan brokers, and all mortgage professionals by offering a quality array of solutions, including a mortgage-specific CRM, that will help you not only boost your lead generation but also streamline all aspects of your business and help increase efficiency and productivity.
