Digital Mortgage 2021 Keynote: How Do Lenders Execute One-Stop-Shop Homeownership Vision?

Pandemic economics forced all lender attention on high-volume refis and lightning-fast purchases and made consumers expect push-button ease more than ever. Now lenders must meet diversification and one-stop-shop customer expectations at once. What services are best under a lender roof vs. integrated via technology? How do you deliver what consumers expect in the current regulatory climate?

Transcription:

Heidi Patalano: (00:05)

Good morning and welcome to good morning and welcome to Digital Mortgage 2021. I'm Heidi Patalano, editor in chief of National Mortgage News. On behalf of the team here. I want to welcome you and thank you for joining us for what promised to be a number of insightful discussions that we have planned over the next few days. We've gathered together thought leaders from every side of the business to engage in a number of really meaty discussions on digital mortgage and the process of end to end digital digitization. So, first up today, we have my discussion with Bob Walters, president and chief operating officer of Rocket Mortgage. So please stay tuned and thanks again for joining us.

Jami Kump: (00:52)

Hi, I'm Jamie Kump from Qualia, the digital closing platform, powering connections between every participant in the real estate transaction, including mortgage lenders in home purchase and refinance experiences. It's my privelage today to kick off digital mortgage by introducing our keynote speaker over the past few years, borrower expectations have changed dramatically in part due to companies like Rocket who are taking big risks in the name of the consumer experience. Around this time in 2015 Rocket Mortgage launched its first true digital mortgage experience. This moment really changed the mortgage industry within two years. Over 25 digital lending firms offered a similar automated mortgage application experience to consumers. And now in 2021, a digital mortgage application offering is nearly ubiquitous among lenders of all types. Today, Rocket Mortgage is extending its vision for fully digital end to end experience by going beyond mortgage to fold the entire home buying experience into a one click button experience.

Jami Kump: (02:01)

Rocket now connects consumers seamlessly with its integrated mortgage title appraisal real estate. And I buying operations. Rocket has always been a pioneer when it comes to reinventing the consumer experience. And I like many people here today am eager to learn more about rocket's path to creating an end to end consumer experience. I'm honored to introduce today's keynote speaker, Bob Walters, Chief Operating Officer at Rocket Mortgage by Bob's leadership envision in the future of mortgage are unparalleled and his insights on operationalizing. The ideal consumer experience are backed by more than two decades with Rocket Mortgage. Please welcome to the stage today's moderator Heidi Patalano, Editor-in-Chief at National Mortgage News and keynote speaker, Bob Walters, COO of Rocket Mortgage.

Heidi Patalano: (02:58)

Hello, I'm Heidi Patalano, Editor-in-Chief of National Mortgage News. I'm here today with Bob Walters, President and Chief Operating Officer of Rocket Mortgage. Bob oversees the day to day operations at rocket and previous to that, he served as the chief economist and executive vice president supervising the capital markets and servicing operations at the company. Bob, thank you so much for joining us here today.

Bob Walters: (03:21)

Thanks for having me. It's good to be with you.

Heidi Patalano: (03:25)

Great to have you here. Um, I wanna start by addressing some of the biggest news that's impacting the mortgage market right now, or could stand to impact the mortgage market soon, um, as Theron variant of the coronavirus spreads. Um, how do you think mortgage rates and the housing market may be impacted?

Bob Walters: (03:45)

Well, you know, it's, it's, it's the unusual, our industry's unusual in that oftentimes bad news is good news for the mortgage industry uncertainty and, and when there's a, a risk on environment is the, is the folks in the markets like to say usually interest rates fall as a result. And so the uncertainty around OCN, we saw that over the last week or so we saw the tenure treasury drop. Um, so that is positive to interest rates, all albeit not a positive for the broader society, but all things around risk are generally accrue pretty well for the mortgage industry.

Heidi Patalano: (04:22)

Mm-hmm yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, another thing, um, an a recent development, um, you know, right at the end of November, uh, the conforming limit on Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac loans was raised to close to nearly 1 million in some areas. And so some affordable housing advocates have, you know, this news, it only exacerbates affordability challenges, and other critics are saying it puts a damper on the QM market. So I was just wondering, where do you stand in reaction to that news?

Bob Walters: (04:52)

Well, you know, everything, everything in life has pros and cons. Um, but in general, what this means is that more people can take advantage of historically the rates, the 30 year fixed rates that Fannie and Freddie, uh, offer in the marketplace. And so while there may be a crowding out component to other parts of the market, it's generally a positive for people in a lot of communities, especially, especially in those areas where home prices have increased pretty dramatically cuz $600,000 or $800,000 seems like a lot, but as we be well known, some communities that's a starter home. So, um, so it's a positive in those, uh, in those communities,

Heidi Patalano: (05:30)

Right? Yeah. I mean, it's kind of unbelievable how fast, uh, prices have gone up over the past year, year and a half. Um, so, you know, as refinance volume winds down and, uh, purchases are, are kind of limited to the STR constraints on inventory. Um, I was just wondering which mortgage products do you see as being really, uh, growth areas, uh, in the next year? Let's say,

Bob Walters: (05:57)

You know, at rocket we think about we rather than refi purchase, which is a, which is a pretty stilted definition. We think about rate sensitive, less rate sensitive. Um, and so rate sensitive is traditional rate and term refinance, less rate, sensitive cash out. Um, there's, you know, it's interesting every year, people for a whole host of reasons and many of those reasons have nothing to do with overall interest rates, sadly, a significant portion of Americans get divorced. So a lot of times that necessitates someone coming off of title and that usually accomplished to refinance. You see people moving out of an arm into a fixed or out of a fixed into an arm or people refinanced to get out mortgage insurance. And that's a way to effectively lower your interest rate by a half to three quarters of a point. Um, just by just by doing that or moving out of FHA with, with the IP that's involved there into a conventional loan.

Bob Walters: (06:48)

So, so a lot of reasons. And, um, it's not as though when interest rates take up that it refinances go to zero, in fact, quite the opposite. And, uh, and with the amount of equity that has been built, literally it's 20 trillion or more of home equity. It is the cheapest cheapest form of capital available to homeowners that cash out refinances and equity consolidation I think are going to really, really rise. So that's non rate sensitive, certainly purchases non rate sensitive as well. So I really see a real growth in the non rate sensitive, both around areas where people can take advantage of that equity and a still booming housing market from a purchase perspective while traditional rate and term refinances wan some, but even that said with the tenure treasury as you and I are talking right now at a a hundred forty five hundred fifty basis points, there are still a significant amount of people that are in the money who would benefit tremendously by simply doing a rate and term refinance. So the marketplace is still pretty robust.

Heidi Patalano: (07:47)

Right, right. It's funny. It's all in relative terms, right? Like last year was so unbelievable in terms of volume. This is, this is still very strong. Um, this time right now, it's just, um, just not quite that height of activity. Um, so, you know, rocket has been a step or perhaps many steps ahead of a lot of lenders in the field in terms of, um, technology. And after this period, during the pandemic, in which many had the impetus to adopt these new technology GS and speed up the transaction process, um, that that's becoming more of the norm. So as the faster process becomes the norm, how does rocket aim to stay ahead competitively?

Bob Walters: (08:33)

It's a good question. It's interesting technology really accrues positively in a number of ways for, for us and, and I, I, for others as well. One is, um, as you said, speed of the transaction efficiency of the transaction. Um, but it also scalability. Uh, so we went from 150 billion to 320 billion in one year. And without technology, that is kniting that process together without technology that really gives us that scalability that wouldn't have been possible. And so that's one of the areas where technology is really, really important for us at rocket. And it's also important from a client perspective. It makes the, their transaction easier. They're able to meet us where they wanna meet us, meaning if they want to, if they want to interact with us mostly digitally, they can, if they want to interact with us, uh, mostly by telephone, they can, uh, if they wanna upload documents electronically, they can.

Bob Walters: (09:30)

So, uh, in a world where people are more and more comfortable, in fact, not just comfortable, it actually demanding a digital experience, how they get updated, how they communicate, how they share information, um, they, they want a digital solution. And so that's the other area that technology really drives is for customer happiness, customer satisfaction and how those clients interact with us and, and really how that experience goes for, for them and not just for them, but for other people involved in a transaction, whether it be realtors or broker partners or others. Um, and so that's really what we've been driving more and more. So speed is certainly part of it. Efficiency is certainly part of it, but scalability and client satisfaction and client communication across the various different parties is a huge part of how we spend our technology dollars.

Heidi Patalano: (10:20)

Right. Right. Well, that's the thing I wanted to ask about in terms of kind of where we're landing now, uh, in terms of customer expectations, um, and what might have changed during the pandemic. Um, you know, like you mentioned, people want the digital capability, so what do you think are the absolute must haves in terms of, um, customer communications? Like the things that you absolutely have to be able to offer your customer in terms

Bob Walters: (10:48)

Of, you know, it's, it's interesting. The pandemic really it's, uh, it was certainly it, it has been and continues to be sad for all, all the obvious reasons, but, but we, as a society through, out of absolute necessity have had to adopt certain technologies, I think back to two years ago and we had Microsoft teams, but I never used it. I didn't know really how to log in to use it. There was no real reason to use it. Most of my interactions with team members who weren't present was over a conference call. Um, I, I didn't use zoom very often. So it was, it was not a native technology to me. I had not gone through the learning process. And in the course of about two weeks back in March or in April of 2020, I became pretty proficient along with billions of other people at this technology.

Bob Walters: (11:39)

And so I say that because now when you talk about client expectations, it's not just client expectations, it's also team member expectation. It's also vendor expectations. Everyone now has an expectation about how we interact with each other, how we communicate with each other and the speed at which we do so, and how we do so. And because we've all learned some of these technologies and we've ingratiated them into our lives in so many different ways, it has gone from a that's kind of neat to, yeah, this is how I live. And, um, and so we, more and more incorporating those technologies along a lot with, uh, of other technologies, for example, um, I think remote, uh, online, uh, notary experience, how we close, uh, it was kind of a, it was a niche thing two years ago now for us to say to a client, Hey, you are going to close in your home and you are going to bring up on your screen.

Bob Walters: (12:37)

A, a notary will be sitting in possibly another state and you'll go through the closing documents together, you'll see his or her face. They'll see your face, you'll see the documents you'll go through, you'll electronically sign them. And that's how that process will go. I think two years ago, a lot of people said, that's seems kind of, that seems kind of distant kind of futuristic. Now. They're like, that seems in incredibly normal. I've been doing that for two years and we're seeing the adoption, um, tr you know, skyrocket plus the industry was forced to adopt a lot of these things to solve other, you know, when we couldn't send notaries out to be proximate with other people, cuz of the COVID concerns more and more, we saw these sorts of adoptions around electronic signature and things like that. So, um, so while the pandemic has been terrible in so many ways, the rapid adoption of these technologies is really, really moving very, very quickly as far as how that client experience the team member experie of getting a mortgage, uh, will transpire from now and into the future.

Heidi Patalano: (13:39)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, that's, what's interesting, you know, um, there's this Strat Moore group study that came out recently that said that mortgage companies don't generate much of a return on their investment in terms of their technology implementations. But I think what this is, is just like the new normal, the new have to, like you kind of just have to have these things, um, going forward because those functionalities are gonna be just expected.

Bob Walters: (14:07)

It's, you know, it's interesting because there's two ways to look at this one is there's a lot of truth in the fact that if you wanna look at your cost per um, if you wanna look at speed to close, those haven't changed as materially as the industry might like to think, given the dollar spent and we've seen significant gains, but, but there is a, there is a, a lot of resistance around adopting technologies to really get a breakthrough, to go from whatever it's been $8,000 dollars per unit to $2,000. It's been very persistent and there's some reasons for that. Uh, I call it the, the last mile effect in a lot of cases. Like if I have to, if you work for, um, a landscaper in your town, the way I have to verify verify your employment is one of our team members has to pick up the telephone, has to figure out who your employer is, call that employer, try to get to the right person.

Bob Walters: (14:58)

And then if they don't, they leave a message. And, and so you're using, I like to say you're using this 135 year old technology called the telephone as your primary conduit to, to transmit information. Um, now there's certainly breakthroughs in areas where we can get that, that, that employment verification automatically, but there's still vast parts of the populace that we can't, same thing with Morgan or, or with, uh, homeowner's insurance. In many cases we have to call the homeowner's agent in your town, get ahold of them, have them fax us the deck page. We get the deck page. We have to look at it with our eyeballs and key that in. So, so there's lots of areas where technology's really, really changing things, but there's that last mile that remains fairly resistant that said, as I kind of mentioned earlier, another way to look at return on investment is, uh, around scalability is around.

Bob Walters: (15:48)

So, so how do you, if, if you, would've not been able to do an extra a billion or in our case, a hundred billion, because you didn't have that technology that gave you that scalability, how much profitability would you have left, uh, on UN UN accessed and what's that worth when you think about the return on technology? So if you just look at it on a unit basis, you're probably missing what you're able access in the market. And there's a lot of folks that don't have technology. And I think they're finding that the market expects it. And so they're losing market share. And so I think about market share a lot when I think about technology, both from a scalability and efficiency, but also from a customer adoption customer expectation standpoint. If you, if they're like, yeah, sure. Come on in, bring in all your documents, we'll sit down and, and have a conversation next to the fake plant. They're gonna say, Hmm, that's not what I want. I, I wanna go on my phone. I wanna upload documents that way. I wanna take pictures of documents that way I wanna close digitally. That's how I wanna transact. And so it really becomes the ante to play, uh, as much as, as anything.

Heidi Patalano: (16:54)

Right, right. But yeah, you make a really good point about how, you know, how difficult it is from like county to county, like the, the different kinds of, um, uh, eccentricities or, or, you know, just the very particular, um, uh, things that you encounter from one small area to another. So, I mean, I don't know, is that always gonna be a stumbling block? How do we ever overcome that kind of, um, difficulty? You know what I mean?

Bob Walters: (17:21)

I it's. Yeah, well, gosh, we're a very regulated in industry. Um, and you're right when, especially when you start to, to look at the closing process and you start to look at you, you get to the county level as to how they record mortgage and whether it allow it electronically or whether it has to do with an ink sign piece of paper, uh, their state reg. So that's what makes it really difficult, but it's also, what's exciting about gaining some of the breakthroughs and really kniting things together. I, I say it's one thing to close 10 loans or a hundred loans a month. Um, the, the order of magnitude of difficulty starts to grow exponentially. When you get to a thousand, 10,000, a hundred thousand, you know, we close a hundred, 120,000 loans a month. That's not easy to do because the sheer level of permeations of possible things that are different, um, becomes huge.

Bob Walters: (18:10)

And so unless you have really well put together and wide ranging systems that, that pull together the manual pieces and the digital pieces, uh, it's difficult. And so, um, that's the, the, the thing, as far as your question, I'd love selfishly to see like national laws around right. Coordination and things like that. I'm not sure that's coming. So, but in a, in a way for, just as we think about it, um, oftentimes when industries are very difficult, when, when processes are difficult, when they're difficult to automate, or when they're difficult to scale those who, who figure it out, it's a major, uh, Mo around the business to, to grow. It's not as though someone could go write a couple lines of code and dis intermediate your business. And so our business is both technology, but a heavy dose of human-centric process. And, um, and while that can be frustrating at times, it also is competitive advantage for those who have figured out how to scale.

Heidi Patalano: (19:09)

Right, right, right. You gotta have the efficiencies wherever you can have them, so that you're able to deal with those, those quirks, those local quirks . Um, yeah, that, that, that's an interesting point. Um, speaking of laws and, and regulation, maybe move over to regulation. Um, you know, I just wanted to ask to get your opinion about the biggest challenges that are facing lenders, both on the origination side and the servicing side, I guess, starting with originations in terms of, um, you know, uh, fair housing and making sure that you're compliant. Um, what do you think are the biggest things that that lenders are concerned about today and, and, and how are they looking to solve those problems?

Bob Walters: (19:59)

Hmm, wow. This is, do we have an hour? Um, and I know, and I know we don't, um, it's a, it's a complicated business. Like you said, there is a whole host of regulations. And, and so for us to be both with investor guidelines, state guidelines, uh, and all the various different pieces, that consumer guidelines, um, it, um, to be able to do that reliably and objectively over scale, I keep saying scale, because again, if, if somebody wants to close a hundred loans a month, you can muscle that out. You can take some really experienced smart people who put eyeballs on it, every single loan, and you can make sure that you can do that, but once you start to get into size, you need to have really, uh, excellent, robust systems that can really help make sure that you're able to have investment grade high quality loans, loans that meet those regulatory, um, rules that we all are driving toward.

Bob Walters: (20:50)

So building that out is, as we just talked about in our last last question is I think a huge thing that, uh, lenders are looking at, um, more and more, there's a bifurcation of our industry, um, where there's a number of very large lenders that are getting to a scale. And then there's an awful lot of very small lenders that have real, uh, significant relationships in their community. That's their superpower. They know their community, they have their sphere of influence, um, and they're always gonna be relevant. So you see a lot of smaller lenders, a lot of brokers that are thriving. You see a lot of, not a lot, but a relatively small number of very large lenders that are thriving. The ones that are struggling are ones in the middle. There's the, you know, um, there's too big to too big, to fail and too small to comply.

Bob Walters: (21:34)

I've heard that said, if you have to, if you have to hold uphold a legal compliance team and build that technology to make sure that's the case that's expensive. And so you need to be able to do scale, to make sure that you can pay for those fixed costs, to be able to do that. And more and more mid-tier lenders are struggling with that. The last couple years have masked that because there's been so much volume and that margins have been robust. Um, but that'll become more and more an issue when I talk to people. That's what, um, that's what people are thinking either. How do I get to scale, or how do I, you know, remain small but relevant in my I community? So I think about that. Um, I think a lot of folks are also thinking about how they can continue to make the process cheaper.

Bob Walters: (22:16)

It's still relatively expensive, which, which is not great for us as lenders, but it's also not great for homeowners because ultimately those costs are passed through. And so the cheaper it can become the easier it is to get into ownership when net really leads to the last thing that I think a lot of thoughtful lenders are really, really spending a lot of time and mind share on. And that is equitable lending, um, to really make sure that, uh, the dream of home ownership is available to everyone and not just certain classes of people or certain groups of people. And, um, it's a complex problem, but one that's gonna the require, all the thinking that we can come up with both technologically, both from a, how we approach things. We talk a lot about algorithms, but are those ethical algorithms. Uh, and I know that, uh, lenders are, are wrestling and thinking a lot about that. And I think it's terrific. I, um, I think it's long overdue. I know we think deeply about that too. Uh, and being not only, you know, doing, doing well by doing good. We talk about that. Um, I, I don't think that those are in conflict. I think we can do well and also serve the communities that, um, we're part of.

Heidi Patalano: (23:21)

Yeah. Yeah. Well, it's really interesting to see, um, some something techs kind of developing software that they're kind of in which they're kind having an eye tour, anticipating future regulations in terms of algorithms and decisioning. Um, because yeah, we, we don't know down the line, what will be in place in which, you know, lenders will have to comply with in, in terms of those technologies on the servicing side, uh, as people do loan modifications as they get out of cares act for parents. Um, yeah. I'd just like to get your read on, on how that situation is developing and the biggest challenges that that servicers are facing right now.

Bob Walters: (24:06)

Well, you know, it's interesting back in April, may, uh, servicers were all understandably concerned. We saw unemployment go to 25% overnight. Um, you know, and you, depending on how, how scared you wanted to get, you could model out really terrible outcomes. And are we gonna see 10%, um, the full all? So we're gonna see 20%, 30% who knew in the early days of the pandemic and for servicers from a cashflow perspective, it could have been just a, a, a really, really challenging, uh, time. I think, uh, I'll give a lot of credit. Um, we, you know, we often, and sometimes rightly so give our government a hard time, but I really think in a lot of ways, um, folks in government, uh, folks, Fannie and Freddie F H a V a and others really responded rapidly around these different forbearance solutions. And I really think made a meaningful difference to allow people to get that flexibility they needed if they lost a job and, um, and work through that.

Bob Walters: (25:05)

And so we're now, gosh, I think we're in the low 2% range might peak for us in five and a half percent. I think in the industry, it was around seven and a half, 8%, but I think the rest of the industry is also seeing real positive results. As you know, as employment has returned. And as people are now in a place that they can resume those payments. So they were able to stay in their home. And now seeing those, those, um, delinquency rates fall back into more historic norms, which is terrific. And this again is where technology can really pay off. We, we built something over the last four years. We call rocket solutions, which allows our clients, our service clients to work through various, uh, default opportunities like forbearance or repayment plans or modifications with without even having to speak to one of our, one of our folks, if they wanna speak to one of our folks, they certainly can.

Bob Walters: (25:53)

But in the early days, a lot of lenders got overwhelmed. The calls just started pouring in. You only have so many team members who can pick up those calls and wait times are long. And so, uh, rocket solutions paid enormous dividends for us during that period of time, because the, the, the beauty of a computer is it's on 24, 7, 365. And so a lot of our folks were being able to really educate themselves as to what the forbearance, uh, required, and, and then were able to execute on that forbearance in many cases, without having to talk to one of our folks, which meant, um, interestingly enough, we had less uptake of four rebar than others did cuz a lot of people, a lot of our clients, when they fully understood, it said, okay, I don't need it right now, but it's available to me. So I'm not gonna enter into it.

Bob Walters: (26:37)

And they never did versus had they not had that or not been fully educated, they might have entered into something they didn't need, but that, that's an example where technology can be a lifesaver. If we think about some of the lessons learned in the, in the financial crash and you look at some of what happened to some of the servicers who absolutely got overwhelmed, they got overwhelmed because they're well-meaning team members who could support, you know, a normal ratio of people who needed their help. When that ratio went from X to 20 X or 50 X, all of a sudden they'd said, yeah, I'll call you back in three weeks. And it just, it just became really, really difficult for those folks. And that's why we really invested in scalable solutions that got away from the one to one. You must talk to one of people to get that assistance. And it's been, um, it's been a real, it's been, it's been huge for us.

Heidi Patalano: (27:28)

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's great. Um, right. I mean, that's something interesting that we're reporting out now, companies scaling up and scaling well, more of scaling down right now as, um, uh, as the environment changes, the landscape changes. Um, you know, one thing I, I wanted to ask about is to switch gears a little bit. Um, you know, this past spring, um, United wholesale mortgage caused a bit of controversy, um, when they verbatim some, uh, brokers from who are doing business with them, uh, from also doing business with, with U at rocket and over at fairway. And so I just wanted to get your opinion on that move and, and how things have, how that might have impacted business over at rocket.

Bob Walters: (28:16)

Yeah. You, you know, it's interesting, it's been good for us. Our market share has increased in the broker space, uh, for a whole whole host of reasons. Not, not the least of a lot of brokers just really, really found it, abhorrent that somebody else would tell them how they were gonna run their business. So it's been good for rocket. I, I think, I think according to UWM, it's been good for them. Mm-hmm the problem is it's bad for brokers. Um, because it really comes down to if you're, if you're a broker, I was talking to one of our broker partners and he said that, uh, the reason he said he became a broker, cuz he was a, a significant producer for, um, for a lender is he said I wanted to be in charge. I wanted to make the decisions and have the autonomy and the choice that being a broker, I didn't want to someone else to tell me what I do.

Bob Walters: (29:05)

And so, uh, there's a, a lot of folks that are really frustrated by the fact that a lender's trying to tell them how they must do business, uh, rather than earn their business. I, you know, I, I think in that case, um, that company, it seems that they're behaving as if the brokers work for them. And um, you know, we see at the other way around, we work for the brokers. We earn their business every day, if our pricing and our technology and our marketing and our service is not excellent. Then they go somebody else or go somewhere else. They have that choice. Um, we're not forcing them into a choice that they don't wanna make. So yeah, it's been good. It's been good for us, but it's not been good for the broker community because the broker superpower is choice and this limits their choice.

Heidi Patalano: (29:51)

Right, right. You know, uh, just one other thing I wanted to ask you about, um, in October you, uh, rocket mortgage announced the partnership with Salesforce. I just wanted to ask about how that has been developing, give us some details on how it's going.

Bob Walters: (30:07)

It's well, we're in the early days, but it's exciting. I mean, Salesforce is such a dynamic, uh, technology that so many folks use to knit. We've been talking about complexity. I mean, one of the, one of the big things for any business deals with is the complexity of inform complex. Your client works with you in one area and in another area. And the, and does the right hand know what the left hand is doing and can you understand your client across the platform, pull together all those data points and all those things. And so Salesforce is such a, a dynamic and excellent platform to, to drive that customer service, to drive that, um, pulling together all those different pieces. So to be able to work in that in the mortgage space and pull that together in the mortgage world for a lot of folks is, is really, really exciting that again, it takes what is a complicated process and uses technology to make that easier.

Bob Walters: (30:59)

I always say, um, let computers do what computers do well. So humans can do what humans do. Well, what humans aren't good at is remembering 9,000 things or, you know, searching across a million platforms all at once. Computers can make child's play of that by serving up information at the right moment at the right time, connecting the dots in a really, um, a really thoughtful and intuitive way while he humans. Then with that information can use all the, of our skills as humans to influence and persuade, to show empathy, to really help people get to the kinds of solutions that they wanna get to. If a, if a team member is trying to think of the 900 rules, they have to follow or trying to use nine systems to try to access this data point to that data point. They're not truly listening and interacting and really giving the, the kind of advice or the kind of interactivity with that client that, that client's looking for. So that's what we're excited about with Salesforce is we're bringing together two institutions that know a thing or two about making difficult processes, easier through technology. And, um, and so we're, we're really excited about what's being.

Heidi Patalano: (32:04)

Yeah. Yeah. That's great. All right. Um, well, let's see. I, I thank you so much for your time and, and also we're reaching you, you're in Detroit. Is that right? What do I see behind you over there?

Bob Walters: (32:17)

Downtown Detroit? Yeah.

Heidi Patalano: (32:18)

that's right. It looks almost like a little snowy out there, I think, but I guess

Bob Walters: (32:25)

We, well, no, we got a little bit, uh, we got a little bit over the last couple days, so it's December. It's that time of year. Hopefully we'll, we'll have a white Christmas.

Heidi Patalano: (32:33)

Right, right. That's great. All right, Bob. Well, thank you so much for your time. Thanks for joining us here today. And, um, I really appreciate your getting your thoughts today.

Bob Walters: (32:44)

Thank you so much, Heidi. It's been fun.