How to Squeeze More Value Out of Mortgage Technology with Better Adoption
Allison Leung
Great technology will only help you become more efficient and profitable if your team uses it. While that might seem obvious, a major reason the mortgage industry hasn’t evolved is lack of adoption. It makes sense: For busy lending teams adept at their current processes, there’s little incentive to interrupt productivity to learn a new tool. Plus, there’s a certain comfort in maintaining the same practices that have served you for years.
Recent Stratmor Group data shows that while lender adoption of tools has risen, adoption by users lags. To keep up with rapidly improving industry technology, lenders are rushing to implement solutions into their businesses, but only about half the eligible users (internal and consumer) are adopting those tools.
This lack of adoption is not only holding the industry back from cost savings and better borrower satisfaction, but it comes at a serious cost to lenders. eClosing is a perfect example: As of 2020, 43% of lenders had eClosing capabilities, yet the net adoption rate for this technology among lenders, settlement agents, and borrowers was only 16%. By not adopting this technology, lenders missed out on the concrete efficiency improvements eClosing provides, including 60% more staff capacity and 80% fewer errors, according to Maxwell eClosing partner Snapdocs.
Grow your competitive edge
The truth is, there’s no future in which the mortgage industry doesn’t center around lending teams powered by automation, AI, and tech-empowered tools. In October 2018, Fannie Mae reported 17,000 electronic promissory notes (eNotes). For all of 2019, the number of eNotes increased by more than 500% to over 95,000. Then February 2020 experienced a record high of 19,240 eNotes registered. Fannie Mae also reported that 66% of borrowers are interested in a fully digital process and 95% of lenders are reliant on technology solution providers to deliver services in some form.
The demand for and importance of smart technology in the mortgage space is only accelerating. Despite this trend, the industry still has a ways to go in becoming truly modern. Other lenders’ hesitance to adopt the full front- and back-office benefits of today’s mortgage technology only provides more opportunity for you to step up. By embracing powerful tech tools today, you can get ahead of industry trends and differentiate yourself from the pack.
Earning team buy-in
Whether you’re shopping for a technology partner now or are suffering from mixed adoption of an existing tool, forming a plan to help train and transition your team is crucial. The following steps will help unify your team through the use of a singular tool, as well as increase efficiency and ROI across your organization.
Involve stakeholders in the decision-making process.
Your team will be much more open to adopting new technology if they’re involved in choosing it. Invite those who will be using the software to attend sales calls and demos, and make sure they feel comfortable asking questions and voicing their opinions. Since your lending team is intimately familiar with pain points in the loan process, they’ll be most attuned to features and solutions the technology needs to address. If you already have technology in place, encourage your team to work more closely with the provider’s support resources to move past hesitations that are preventing usage.
Encourage top team members to adopt the technology.
Your entire employee base likely won’t onboard in a day. To achieve momentum in the right direction, advocate for leading team members to move their workflow to the new technology. If others see high-performing employees adopt the tool, they’ll be more likely to follow suit. Having those on the platform share the increased productivity they’re experiencing will also help.
Celebrate wins on the new platform.
The goal of your new technology is to help your team achieve more, faster, with less work. Ideally, your team will start to see these results, which will help convert holdouts. Visually display the wins you’re experiencing, and consider handing out prizes or gift cards to employees who are able to produce the best outcomes from the new technology. (Just make sure those incentives are compliant with regulations.)
Proceeding deliberately through the onboarding process is incredibly important to reaping the increased efficiency your technology solution can provide. Success won’t happen simply by onboarding with your new technology partner. Without a solid strategy for rollout, you’ll be paying into a subscription with little to show for it.
How Maxwell can help
We only win when you do. That means we’re dedicated to supporting your team from onboarding to implementation and beyond. Because we believe a lasting partnership with our customers is the best path to mutual success, we continually work to ensure all lenders on Maxwell are equipped for success on the platform.
Specifically, we work closely with lending teams to incentivize use of the Maxwell platform so lenders are able to achieve optimal efficiency from our tools and features. We also facilitate training through comprehensive demos and attach concrete metrics to the success lending teams can hope to achieve in terms of dollars, time saved, productivity, and more.
Throughout the process, we dig into what makes you tick and build that into your onboarding and implementation.
“Most horror stories (believe me, I’ve heard them) stem from a lack of communication, misunderstanding how the client works, and not syncing teams,” says Maxwell VP of Customer Success Amy Jo. “Avoiding these missteps requires melding our team with theirs, not just providing production numbers—and that starts with meticulous planning and a deep grasp on each customer’s individual wants, needs, and processes.”
Plus, Maxwell Point of Sale includes intuitive features and tools specifically designed for loan officer productivity, incentivizing your team to integrate the technology into their daily workflows.
Maxwell features LOs love include:
- Screenshare: Empower your LOs to assist borrowers in real time via screenshare, where, with consent, LOs can access a borrower’s screen and help them navigate the entire point-of-sale experience—even if the borrower is on a mobile device.
- Pricing comparison: Enable your LOs to quickly create and share multiple pricing scenarios, educating the borrower and driving them to the loan application.
- Streamlined pre-approvals: Help your LOs create pre-approval and pre-qualification letters on the fly while giving real estate agents the power to independently adjust up to the predefined loan maximum.
- Real Estate Agent communication: Keep real estate agents engaged and productive with automated milestone updates that give them visibility into their buyer’s mortgage progress.
- LO landing page & mortgage calculator: Intuitive and streamlined LO landing pages highlight your team and your brand, turning more visitors into applicants.
Learn more in The Essential Guide to Lending Efficiency
Want more tips on how to implement the right lending technology and leverage it to impact your bottom line? Our eBook, The Essential Guide to Lending Efficiency, offers advice from mortgage experts on how to gain a competitive advantage in any market cycle through the power of an efficient lending process.
Download this guide to learn:
- 4 steps to create a highly efficient lending process
- Data that shows how these efficiencies can improve your productivity and profitability
- Actionable tips to implement faster, more streamlined systems
- Strategies to give your lending team a competitive advantage as volume ebbs and flows
- How to remain nimble and agile through changing market conditions
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