TheMReport — News and strategies for the evolving mortgage marketplace.
Issue link: http://digital.themreport.com/i/1175308
TH E M R EP O RT | 29 SPONSORED CONTENT Y our borrowers connect with many individu- als in their lives. Some connections are deep social constructs such as spouses or family, while others may be more fleeting and situational—a debt counselor or attorney. As lenders and servicers, you spend many resources to enable borrowers to connect with you (from initial loan selection all the way through payoff). A connected borrower is more inclined to come to you for future financial needs, and you just might be missing an easy opportunity to help borrowers feel even more connected to you. What will happen if you allow your borrowers to invite others in their lives as guests to their account self-service? Increasing Borrower Satisfaction Provide a means for borrow- ers to invite others into their accounts online, and you honor their connections with family and friends. You already do that in your servicing operations today, but with phone calls and emails. Transferring that work to digital self-service reduces your work effort while continuing to support borrower connections. Providing a means for borrowers to also invite debt counselors and at- torneys makes you more of a true partner in helping them control their situation, while at the same time driving down your costs to service the loan. An Easy First Step An initial foray into guest participation would be to support a guest pay option on your borrower self-service portal. The experience should be simple—not tedious. A simple experience allows the guest to enter the account number, postal code, and email address. The guest is presented with a form to make a payment, provided a confirmation online, and receives an email confirmation at the address supplied. Simple and quick. For example, Jenny is a first-time homeowner. Her uncle, Mike, wants to celebrate her one-year anniversary of homeownership by providing her monthly payment. Instead of Mike trying to send money to Jenny, she can invite her uncle to make a guest payment. Mike follows the link on the invite, enters Jenny's account number, her ZIP code, and his own email address. Mike then enters his payment information, clicks on enter, and receives a confirmation of payment. Mike's confirmation email is waiting in his inbox a moment later. It is important to note that the guest cannot see or access any other information. The guest experience is simple but isolated to making a one-time payment, as well as controlled to ensure the borrower's data is not at risk. Once you have offered a guest- pay experience, you may expand to other types of guest interac- tions. In today's economy, there are a variety of situations in ser- vicing where borrowers, as well as servicers, rely on third parties to provide information. Offering guest access to your borrower can help to speed up and simplify their process while providing the borrower a powerful experience. With both guests and borrowers, success depends on managing their experiences from start to finish. Here are two examples of how that can be accomplished: • Guest access practical example: Allow Jenny to invite her homeowner's insurance agent to upload evidence of insurance directly into her account. This would reduce the burden on the homeowner and streamline information handling in hazard insurance departments. • Guest access complex example: Allow Jenny to invite a debt counselor into her account to assist with payment arrange- ments. This guest experience would require careful analysis and preparation of what the debt counselor is able to view and what actions he/she is permitted to take. Designing this experience can start with the invite from Jenny (the bor- rower), which would include a document disclosing terms and conditions. The counselor would be limited to access just the right information, and only for the specific amount of time required. The balance is to wel- come and support while tightly controlling risk. Technology, when used properly, can help us feel more connected. We have seen guest access done well, and we have heard from ser- vicers how it has improved their borrower satisfaction. JOE DOMBROWSKI is Director of Product Management for Sagent Lending Technologies. He is responsible for the direction and evolution of Sagent's servicing software products. Along with his team, he has shaped how the LoanServ servicing system and Account Connect portal for borrower self-service have changed to drive better experiences for servicers and borrowers. Dombrowski previously worked at Mellon Mortgage in servicing operations and support, and at Fiserv in conversions and client executive consulting. He has provided loan servicers process improvement consulting, opportunity assessment, and technology adoption consulting to drive better outcomes for an industry he loves. SagentLending.com Fostering the Connected Borrower How can lenders and servicers use features like guest access to improve the user experience of their customers?