Is Customer Relationship Management Only for a Select Few?

Written By: Dan Itkis, CEO of BNTouch, Inc.

Dan has over 12 years in the hi-tech industry of sales, marketing and engineering roles. He is currently the CEO of Portland, OR based BNTouch, Inc that provides the mortgage industry with first-rate CRM solution that makes mortgage companies and individual originators more competitive and efficient while allowing them to turn clients into assets through a sales & marketing system implementation. Contact Dan at Dan@BNTouchMortgage.com.

CRM has been embraced by businesses in practically all industries as the new miracle tool. Billions of dollars have been spent, some successfullly, some not, on creating and implementing these systems. A new multi-billion dollar industry has sprung up offering a multitude of solutions, both generic and industry specific. At the same time a lot of enterprises have built their own, in-house systems. The mortgage industry has been slow to see the benefits and how it will help you compete with the big boys!

So what is a CRM?

Customer Relationship Management. The term embodies the convergence of sales, marketing and service into one, cohesive system. In large organizations, sales, marketing and service functions don't communicate with each other very well. Each with their own processes, systems and databases, they are each driven by different objectives. In the age of super short production and closing cycles, you don't have the time it takes to build long-term relationships. CRM is on of the methods that will help you create the "client-for-life" relationship.

Being able to tie each department and system together is paramount as marketing campaigns are measured by not only the number of closings, but closed deals from REPEAT customers. A good CRM not only solves those problems, but it often becomes a strategic advantage and a revenue generator for small and large mortgage companies alike.

So how does this all relate to the mortgage industry or more specifically mortgage originators?

Mortgage originator offices are run as small businesses. You typically perform all functions under one roof: sales, marketing, service/support and accounting. Over the years a variety of tools have emerged to cover different aspects of a loan originator's job: ACT for contact management, Outlook for calendaring and email, MortgageQuest for marketing, LOS for number crunching and mortgage forms, 3^rd party services for client follow up. Add to this, websites for client communication and traffic generation, paper notes for lead/prospect follow up, some kind of a system for lender rep tracking and you really have your hands full with a bunch of tools that work individually - but not together.

The truth is without having a very talented person whose up to speed with technology and 60 hours per week to spend, it's a challenge to make all those pieces work together.

Let's say you wanted to implement a system that goes something like this:

1. A new lead/prospect appears.



2. You send them an introduction letter.



3. If they are a purchase, you set them up on an informational drip campaign until they are ready for underwriting.



4. You want to send the referral source an email/fax/letter thanking them for the referral.



5. At the pre-approval stage you want to send your lender account reps loan-specific scenarios.



6. Create client status reports and email/fax to the realtors and/or builders involved.



7. After the closing, you want to thank everyone involved in the transaction and ask for referrals.



8. You want to send your client a newsletter once a month and congratulate them with major holidays and birthdays.



9. At the same time you want to monitor for opportunity to refinance their loan.

A good CRM system will be able to help you execute this strategy.

A good CRM system should also be able to prevent the highs and lows in your business by creating a predictable stream of income while alleviating the time constraints of constant coordination and administration tasks we all know and "love".

Is there a need for a change?

The answer to this question, like most anything in this world, is "it depends". It depends on your goals, business model, human resources, etc. The questions you need to ask yourself are:

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