If you are relying on a spreadsheet to manually keep track of your mortgage leads and clients, you are wasting valuable time that could be better spent on other areas of your mortgage business. As a loan officer, lead generation and forging strong relationships are essential for business success and a quality mortgage CRM is a tool your business needs.
But how do you know which mortgage CRM is right for your business? What tools are essential for a quality mortgage CRM? Our CRM guide will show you how the right CRM tool can help you manage customer interactions, automate repetitive tasks, and evaluate data points in order to reach your business goals.
Key Takeaways
- A mortgage CRM is a customer relationship management system that can help loan officers manage and nurture leads and existing clients, boost lead generation, automate tasks, and evaluate data.
- A mortgage CRM is more specialized for the mortgage industry compared to general CRMs and loan origination software.
- Implementing a mortgage CRM can make data-driven decisions, boost lead generation, simplify the loan process, improve marketing, enhance customer relationships, and save time and money.
- A quality mortgage CRM should have features like automation, advanced reporting, lead management, loan application tracking, loan management, integration, marketing and advertising, mobile functionality, and regulation compliance.
- Adding a mortgage CRM to a mortgage business can take it to the next level by improving productivity, accuracy, and customer service.
What is mortgage CRM?
For any industry that relies on building solid customer relationships, a CRM, or customer relationship management system, is essential. A CRM can help you effectively manage and nurture relationships with leads and existing customers, while also helping to boost your lead generation and organization. In addition, this powerful tool can help automate many daily tasks, allowing you to focus your time and energy on your clients. A CRM designed for the mortgage industry, however, will go beyond the essential CRM qualities and be integrated with a loan origination software (LOS) that allows you to effectively track your leads through the entire pipeline.
Mortgage CRMs vs General CRMs
A general CRM, as mentioned above, is a powerful tool designed to help you achieve enhanced contact management. By implementing a CRM into your business, you can take advantage of automation to help nurture and strengthen client relationships. However, for a loan officer, a general CRM lacks the powerful combination of a CRM and LOS system working together that is found in a mortgage CRM.
Mortgage CRM Software vs Loan Origination Software
A loan origination software (LOS) is a platform designed to help you manage and automate different stages of your loan servicing cycle. While you may already have a LOS in place, alone an LOS does little to help you manage your client data. Choosing a mortgage CRM system with an integrated LOS gives you the benefits of both platforms under one central location.
Importance of CRM software for mortgage professionals
With more and more focus from consumers on quality customer service, loan officers need to focus on building strong customer relationships even more than ever. In fact, 96% of consumers report that customer service and the customer experience are major components when choosing a product or service. A mortgage CRM helps you nurture a great customer relationship and experience, helping to build trust and loyalty to your business.
Advantages of using CRM
Now that you understand what a mortgage CRM is, how can implementing one in your business really make a difference? Here we take a closer look at the advantages you can experience with the right mortgage CRM.
1. Make data-driven decisions
A mortgage CRM allows loan officers to efficiently manage all potential customer data, such as phone numbers and other vital information, and then use the collected data to work to improve the customer experience. With analytics and in-depth reporting, you can gain insight into all areas of your business, including client information, the process clients take from lead to closing, loan statuses, and much more. With this data, you gain greater insight into your customers as well as what works in your marketing and what doesn’t.
2. Lead generation
A CRM is a great tool to boost your lead generation not only because of its customer management abilities but also due to the information you can gain from your current leads and customers. As we mentioned above, analyzing the data gathered by your CRM helps you better understand your client persona and how to best attract them through your marketing efforts.
3. Loan process efficiency
A quality mortgage CRM simplifies the mortgage process for both the loan officer and the borrower. The loan officer can automate many steps within the loan process while the borrower can access and submit information directly into the system. This helps to eliminate many of the frustrations borrowers experience and helps to create a more friendly borrower experience.
4. Marketing
A mortgage CRM platform is designed to better manage your customer data while also helping to improve your customer relationships. The right CRM will become a powerful marketing tool that allows you to optimize your mortgage marketing strategy to not only ensure you are continually reaching out and connecting with current clients but also targeting the right client persona for quality lead generation. Data analytics allow you to see a clear picture of which marketing efforts provide the best results while also giving you insight into just what your clients respond to.
5. Better customer relationships
A quality CRM allows you to store a wealth of contact information when it comes to your clients. In many cases, the CRM is customizable to your business needs, allowing you to choose what information you want to collect. As a lender, you can access this specific information and are better able to provide personalized services to each client based on their information and needs.
6. It saves time and money
Think about your current business situation. Do you spend a lot of time each week manually entering new client data into a spreadsheet? Do you spend a day creating and sending out email marketing campaigns only to see little return? A mortgage CRM allows you to streamline your daily activities through automation, templates, and quality data-driven choices, improving your productivity and accuracy while streamlining your workflow. For example, analyzing client data through your CRM shows what your contacts are looking for, enabling you to make a new email marketing campaign that your contacts will open and engage in. Not only that but the campaign can be automated to send out without any effort on your part, saving you time and money.
Mortgage CRM features your CRM should have
Now that you can clearly see the benefits of adding a mortgage CRM to your business, you need to determine which mortgage-specific solutions you want to ensure are included in your CRM. Here we take a closer look at some of the top mortgage features to look for.
1. Automation
A quality CRM will offer multiple marketing automation options that can include everything from email drip campaigns, scheduled reminders, triggered tasks, automatic follow-ups, and more. Taking advantage of the automation features gives you more time in your daily routine to focus on your clients and closings.
2. Advanced reporting
While a CRM is a great management tool, it also can deliver valuable insight into all areas of your business. In-depth reporting capabilities within the system allow you to see exactly what is working within your business and what isn’t, allowing you to make adjustments in your marketing and sales strategies.
3. Lead management
Quality lead management will allow you to import leads from various sources while also automatically adding leads and giving you notifications as they come in through additional sources, such as webpage forms. Quality lead and pipeline management will give you the ability to track a lead’s progress all the way through the sales pipeline.
4. Loan application tracking
A mortgage CRM with loan application tracking abilities allows you to see a clear overview of the loan application process for each client from start to finish. This allows you to efficiently progress a client through the application process.
5. Loan management
Specialized CRM tools can also help with loan management, giving you the ability to do everything from the creation of initial proposals to tracking payments.
6. Integration
Think of the software platforms you currently use for business needs, such as Gmail or Outlook. When choosing a mortgage CRM, it is important to find one that easily integrates with software you already use within your business. If you are choosing a CRM without a LOS system included, it is essential to make sure your new CRM will integrate with your current LOS.
7. Marketing and advertising
Quality advertising and marketing strategies are essential tools for every loan officer. While some CRMs offer built-in marketing features, such as drip campaigns and social media management to help boost your new lead generation, others do not. If there are no built-in features, it is essential to find a CRM that integrates with your marketing software.
8. Mobile functionality
As a mortgage loan officer or mortgage broker, you often meet with clients or network with other professionals on the go. Being able to access your CRM on the go is essential, so you want to look for a CRM that is cloud-based or offers a mobile app so you can access your client information from anywhere. In addition, you can have notifications sent directly to your mobile phone from the CRM through text messages.
9. Regulation compliance
Loan officers are regulated by agencies such as the Federal Housing Administration and the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau. When choosing a mortgage CRM, you want to ensure that it offers the ability to remain compliant with these agency regulations.
Adding a CRM can help take your business to the next level
A mortgage CRM is a powerful tool that can help you better manage leads, nurture your client relationships, and maximize the efforts of your marketing strategies all while saving you time and money through automation. Now that you understand a little bit more about what a quality mortgage CRM offers as well as some key features to benefit your operations, you are ready to take the next step and choose the right CRM for you.
The right mortgage CRM can truly make a difference
As you have learned in this mortgage CRM guide, adding a CRM to your business offers a powerful tool that can take your business to the next level. At Good Vibe Squad, our team understands the mortgage industry and has created a powerful set of tools designed to help loan officers take their businesses to the next level. To learn more about our products and services and how they can help boost your business, book a strategy call today.
