Recently I read the only thing people dreaded more than a trip to the dentist, was applying for a mortgage. As I sat in the dentist chair a few weeks ago, as a result of one of my 2011 goals to take care of my “dental health,” and experienced afresh and anew the agony of dental exploration, I couldn’t help but compare the dentist office to some of our own mortgage practices.
I do have the habit of examining customer service, good and bad, and comparing it to our own. If I see something that someone does that is over the top, I want to add that value to our team. If I witness extremely bad service, it usually is a lesson to me to not do it that way.
I have chronicled my journey through the pain of “my six month smile” and in the process picked up some lessons for our mortgage practices on customer service from the dentist chair.
No. 1—Excellent service goes deeper than first impressions.
We read a lot about the power of “first impressions” but all that glitters is not gold. Just because a professional has a flashy website, friendly receptionist and the claim to be able to accomplish your long-term dental goals, does not mean that they are the dentist for you.
In our own office, we can put out a “beverage menu,” have a website that features everything from A to Z concerning a home mortgage, and have the friendliest receptionist in town. But what do our clients experience once they are inside our mortgage operation, once the process starts? Second impressions are important also.
As I point out below, it is during the “process” that the rubber meets the road. As it turned out, the dentist’s flashy website which featured a “personal consultation” of the best dental plan, was just that. A flashy website. At both the consultation and the first visit, I was herded in and then out; there was no consultation, and no plan. They just started the work. And I had no idea of how long, how hard, or how much work would be done at any given time.
No. 2—Communicate. The “plan” the dentist put together for me was a print-out from a computer, that even now, as I read it for the 10th time, I have no idea of what he is planning to do and when. I just know it will cost a fortune. The “dentistese” (his lingo) was and is totally foreign to me. Worse yet, no one bothered to translate or communicate this to me.
I wonder how many times we communicate with words such as “DTI” or make comments such as “...have to run through DU to obtain and approve/eligible...” and our clients are left wondering “What?” We need to be careful to communicate to our clients in a language they understand and not in our “mortgagese” that we speak to each other every day.
Also, a best practice when working with a client is for each team member to communicate, “this is the next step.” It goes a long way in relieving stress when the clients know what is going to happen next. (I think it would have made me feel better in the dentist chair!)
No. 3—Do not assume you know everything. I know, I know. That is what everyone says—that we as loan officers, loan assistants, processors, really need to just “shut up and listen” to what our clients have to say before we jump in with all the answers. Many times, the clients have a “story” to tell—their “why”—and we are so busy trying to just get their Social Security number and date of birth, we do not listen. We just “assume” we know it all. As a result, we can miss some important and vital information in the care of the client. Are we really listening to our clients?
There was information I felt the dentist needed to know. I have a “history” with dentists and it is not good. For the past several decades, dentists have had an extremely hard time numbing my mouth for whatever “operation” they were planning. The last visit to the dentist, it took four different rounds of injections, and in the end, I still just suffered through it never truly being numb to the pain.
I filled out a form several days prior to this appointment and put this information in capital letters. I told two dental assistants and the dentist. “It is very hard to numb my mouth,” I said as the dentist once again as he prepared to give me the first “numbing shot.” He and the assistant exchanged glances and he snorted—yes, snorted. The assistant said confidently, “Well, I guess they just didn’t know how to do it. We do.”
I must say, I said a brief prayer that she was right. But, unfortunately, after 10 minutes I knew she wasn’t.
No. 4—Don’t play the blame game. In the mortgage business, when something goes wrong on a file, it’s easy to start point fingers. We can blame the company we work for, the manager, processor, loan officer, underwriter—and the client. But first we need to examine ourselves to see if there was something we could have done differently in the situation which would have lessened the chance of chaos and confusion.
After the sixth try at numbing my bottom jaw (around 20 injections) the exasperated dentist told me that most likely the reason was that I was “tense and stressed.” Duh! In other words, I felt he was telling me it was my fault that my mouth would not numb. He and his staff had already informed me that they were all leaving in one hour so I was definitely not cooperating with their time clock.
When I got home, I Googled “trouble with numbing for dental work,” and I discovered that one “expert” quoted four different reasons why the patient cannot be numbed:
1. Anatomical variation
2. Bad technique of the dentist (you’d think?)
3. Anxiety
4. Local infection
Well, there was no local infection. I did not know what the first one was at the time I was sitting in the dentist chair (and I am assuming the dentist didn’t either) so that leaves either the dentist or me to blame. My pain is either my nervousness or his lack of expertise. But I will tell you this—I didn’t really care whose fault it was, I just wanted the pain to go away.
We can be quick to play the blame game, but what really is the point? If we are trying to close a loan and there is a problem, we just need to pinpoint the problem and find a solution as quickly as possible. If it is a client who has failed to give necessary information, then sit down with them again, express the urgency of the matter, and get it done. If it is a processing or originating failure, correct it and go on.
Louise Thaxton is a producing branch manager for Fairway Independent Mortgage Corp. Subscribe to her blog at
