Transcription:
Sandra Madigan (
So with me, I have Beverly Steele, she's the Vice President and Principal of Product, management at US Bank. Next to her we have Maggie Mae. She is a product director for Black Knight for our crm, and Sure. Fire Product Suite. And finally, last but not least, you have Craig Rebmann. He's managing director at Black Knight and manages and oversees all of our origination products. So, please welcome them and let's give them a round of applause. We're already winning. Okay. So, this session we're gonna talk a lot about retention. And retention I think gets harder in the current environment that we're in because, interest rates are what they are. And, then we have to, I feel work a little bit harder to retain our customers. So let's kick it off with you, Beverly. We've seen a lot of innovation, I would say an investment in technology, in delivering capabilities that will help us retain our customers. But we also know that customers want both sides of the coin. They wanna sell service and do everything through technology at the same time. They wanna be able to pick up the phone and call someone. it's not just unique to mortgage. You come from the banking environment. I know every conference that I've been in the banking world, there's all talk about the branches, the branch going away, and yet every year you see banks opening more branches. So clearly customers want both digital engagement, personal engagement. Talk to us about USB, US bank retention, what that strategy looks like, and how you manage both.
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, absolutely. Thanks for, thanks for the question. Thanks for inviting me to be part of the panel. Customers want to not just be a number, right? They want to be able to self serve when it's convenient for them, but they also have a desire to have that human element or that human touch, whether it's a branch or even a phone call, right? Having any kind of, do it together. Experience is something that customers actually desire, right? We noticed over the pandemic that, customers would, they, they missed the branch experience. They wanted to see a human face right? and they missed that, and it was evident. And digital can only do so much for retention for a customer. you really need to meet the customer where they are and where they want to be. So, when you're thinking about building customer experiences, you need to think about all of the places that it shows up to the customer, and make your experiences channel agnostic and congruent so that customers can easily switch between, between channels at their leisure. I talk about the customer experience, and for full disclosure, I am actually on the servicing side. So I'm in the minority here. So, I work very closely with my sales and originations partners, obviously, on trying to bring our customers from servicing back into the sales. I think of it as a dating and a marriage relationship. So, in sales, it's dating, right? Getting to know each other, understanding if it's a good fit, kind of doing your due diligence on whether or not, the product and the services that are being presented and offered to you is right for you in your situation as a customer. And then in servicing, I think that is the marriage, right? It's a longer, five to seven year, relationship with a customer. And at the end of it, they're, as they're looking to make their next move, whether they're looking to buy a new home or refinance or whatnot, the most recent experiences they have are typically with the servicing team. So, if you're not in touch as a mortgage originations or sales professional with your servicing team, you may be missing, the opportunity to ask your customer to renew their vows, frankly.
Sandra Madigan (
So, it's really more of a journey than, siloed approach to everything. And I know, everybody has overcome silos to bring up better solutions to the industry US Bank. What does that journey look like? What can you share? Like the good, the bad and the ugly of me?
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, absolutely. First and foremost, it starts with understanding how you show up to the customer today. It matters how you show up to the customer today. And you have to understand that you need to bring people who, both from internal, internal partners in the organization, legal compliance, risk partners along with, operations professionals who know how, the process works and how it happens. All of that matters to the customer when they're making their next decision. Hey, if you, if you don't bring your particularly legal and compliance partners, along at the very beginning, you're gonna struggle with bringing a better customer experience. Because as we've, as you will learn, if you're trying to enhance the customer experience, you have this really fantastic idea that seems like it would be a wonderful thing to bring to customers, then, well we can't do that because X, Y, Z regulation or that may be, fair and responsible banking concern. You've gotta keep those things in mind when you're building customer experiences and be deliberate about including that at the very beginning of any kind of, CX initiative you have, at the doorstep.
Sandra Madigan (
So, Craig, I'm gonna go to you. You've been on the origination side, you've seen before us in the servicing side saw technology advancements. I think originations always is a first foray into new technologies. and I think we've come a long way from solving issues by throwing people at it right, to being able to do it through technology and more so I would say the pandemic we had to, our hand was forced in doing that. What have you seen that technology companies have provided that help kind of create and keep that journey whole?
Craig Rebmann (
Yeah, one of the big things is just the explosion of APIs. APIs are everywhere. Everybody's got an API, which is fantastic, but of course somebody has to write to it as well. So it's not, the API in and of itself doesn't satisfy the full integration need, but really that, that need for integration throughout the platform, whether that's internal, getting your servicing data up front in city application into the point of sale so that you can start pre-filling that information, really demonstrate that, yeah, I really do know who my customer is. I really do know this individual. I mean, if it's a marriage, you'd wanna make sure you know who they are, right? So bringing that forward and really demonstrating that, the customer is a key piece of it. But also plugging into, trying to plug into core banking systems, getting asset information from, third party services that provide, asset income, information, the data from source, integrations or key piece to it as well. And then, if you do need documents filling in around the edge with data extraction off of the documents so that it's, helps to facilitate that. But part of that is really about getting into more automation as well. Because what you, you really don't want to have that wonderful upfront point of sale experience. Everything's going smoothly. Oh, they really know me. They've got all my information. This is fantastic. And then you get dumped into a processing channel that is just, can, you can sum me your tax returns? I just did all this stuff online. What, Oh yeah, can you do this? Can you do that? And it really becomes very frustrating and it erodes all that positive energy you built up with that eight point of sale component of it. So, automation, task based processing as much as possible and exception based processing are really critical to that. So, that when you're working with the customer and interacting with the customer, you're interacting at the right times. You're contacting them when you need to contact them, and you leave 'em alone when you don't need anything from 'em other than just keeping in touch. So that, that's really a critical component to it. Like, you had said, Beverly, you have to keep the process in mind when you're building out that total customer experience.
Sandra Madigan (
You keep saying information, Sandra hears that I hear data. Yeah. To me, information becomes data. So, Beverly, for you guys, what have you done in the data arena? Like how have had you had purchased data or actually losing the data that you have within the bank already, how do you help the origination side with data that you may have in servicing to kind of complete
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, absolutely. It's all of the above is the short answer, the slightly longer answer, is to when you're creating experiences and understanding, what the customer's going through when you're, if it's a new digital experience, you have to build it deliberately to capture the data. You need to be able to inform the next steps, right? So it, for example, again, servicing, a payoff quote process, right? A customer is showing interest in understanding how much it will take to pay off their mortgage. Along the way. You can identify and capture data on how far they got in that, in, did they actually go to the quote or are they going just to curiosity point, right? Got it. And you can use that and infer that it might be time to communicate appropriately with this customer. Let's make sure that that data finds its way back to our originations partner so that they can do the appropriate outreach. Now, there's the balance you have to strike when you're leveraging data. Of course to make it useful and relevant for your customer, but not overbearing or slightly creepy, right? You use data to personalize and experience, but you don't wanna turn off the customer because they will be very quick to bring their business elsewhere. When we think about data and leveraging data across building products, you need to know if customers are using the thing that you've built. So, we look very closely at utilization metrics. We look at adoption metrics, right? If customers are using it's any product experience you build, Sandra, I know, this is a cheap digital officer. any, any product experience you build, it's not the field of dreams. It will, if you build it, they will not always come. No, they won't. . You have to tell customers about it. And even in communications, you need to make sure that customers have that information at the most pertinent time in their customer journey. Not before, not after to make it the most impactful and effective for the customer.
Sandra Madigan (
I can tell you in building digital products, there's always, you have to measure, you have to measure use. How much are they coming to the side? What part of it are they using? Cuz I can tell you from experience, I was asked by our, client. Can you add the amateurization table because clients wanna download it and for the life of me, I'm going like, who in their right mind literally goes and makes a mortgage payment and then downloads their amortization table? You're, you have like 30 years to pay this. Why are you gonna download that every month? And I'm like, Okay, fine. We built it, we built it, we put it out there. Low and behold, would you not know thta, that is one of the most used features that we see in our servicing digital product and two sides of the coin on one. Yay. Customers are using it on the other side. It broke my heart a little bit. That speaks of lack of trust in our industry that I make a payment and I literally have to print out to make sure, Right. That you're gonna apply it that way. So yeah, Measuring think is super important about, from an ello perspective. Craig, I'm interested, how much do you see Leveragability in the data that there is in the servicing world to help a loan officer?
Craig Rebmann (
Yeah. Mapping the data from servicing, it's, one of the really interesting things about it is it's very different than pulling in asset data, for example, because you know how you're gonna use that asset data, It's the same in every application, right? Yeah. You're gonna use that as part of your, as part of your analytics on the approval of loan. But when you look at like property information, tell me property information from the servicing file, it's very context sensitive. It depends on what that new loan is all about. Is that my just an REO for this one? Cause it's a purchase, Is it my current address, a mailing address as well? Is it actually the subject property? So you really need interaction with the data, not just a flat map. There's that, some of that data really requires the context and requires that input either from a borrower or from a loan officer to provide the appropriate context to make the data truly meaningful to the new application.
Sandra Madigan (
Got it. And I know we talked, you touched a little bit on time, we can communication, you said personalize that communication. And I can see Maggie switching over there cause she's jumping at the bitch to jump in because I know Maggie, that is where you live, breathe, dream, you're probably family sick of you talking about it. But that client journey, that timely communication and why it matters, why do you have to make sure it's not, to your point, Beverly, just a barf of emails and text messages and everything else?
Maggie Mae (
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, we've all, as consumers have the experience of having, disjointed communication. You get an automated text message and it's an all cap. It's like, Hi Maggie , or, it says Robert, but you really go by Bob. And, so in the, in a married scenario or even in a dating scenario, you want your, to them to know your correct preferred name, right? And so as you're looking at your text stack, there's a couple of things and I would just plant the seed with you to explore. So check to see if you have, personalization variables that also include fallback logic. So, another pitfall is, high bracket bracket, first name, high space. We've, we've all seen those and that makes us feel like you don't know me. And, we are still in a very personal human relationship business even though we're still, doing a lot of automation. The other piece I wanna circle back to is that there is this creative tension between origination and servicing, right? And so originators sometimes feel that servicing just wants to hold onto all the loans and they don't wanna give any of them back to be re originated .And I think you've done the excellent job really closing that loop and looking for this signal. So, I recently logged into my servicing portfolio and looked at equity options because who's not exploring equity options right now? And there wasn't any, right? And so I was curious about, it's not our platform, okay? But I was curious about who's looking at my, my path, my journey and going, wow, this, this person based on their path is indicating that they're interested in an opportunity. And so how do we take those opportunities and give them back to originators, give them back to the origination team and convert those into real opportunities that we can take action on. One of the simplest ways, to do that is through some folks use an email newsletter that has like a couple of different headlines. One is about cash out, one's about refinancing, one's about buying a second home. And, so if you send that out and somebody clicks on buying a second home, they're probably interested in buying a second home. And, so as you're exploring crm, your CRM platform should be able to segment those opportunities and serve them back up to, the folks that can take advantage of them. And ultimately you would help your company, right? Cuz you'll get more business in the door. Yeah.
Sandra Madigan (
So I do think for civilization is really important. And I was meeting with a client, this is probably a year ago, and he was sharing how he had Spotify, Apple Music, Pandora and Amazon Prime Music, all the music services and in all of them they're tracking, right? What you listen to a lot, what two thumbs up, what you thumbs down the playlists that you create and download. And he says, as much data there is about my music preferences out there today. When I call Comcast, they should never play lets up link as my whole music cuz they should know that I hate them. But it's an expectation, right? Customers expect us to know them and they expect you to know that. I mean, they're sharing that data that you should be able to create an experience that is tailored to them. To your point, not creepy that can give the hello what he needs. She needs to make that right communication. I think we owe our customers better in that, but with data, the little, woo pops out compliance, data privacy and all of these other things. So, let's talk a little bit about that. How does having a good solid process help manage that?
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, absolutely. Well, first of all, understanding how data informs process or process informs data, those are, okay, multi, it goes both ways, right? when you are looking at the whole of your portfolio, right? And you're looking at how does a customer experience what you've put in front of them. Any technology capability that I've been involved in, building data is always the long hole in the tent. It's either really easy to get to and unuseful or really hard to get to and very useful once you get there. And really understanding what data you have available, what day, what gaps in data you have to be able to inform, what the experience should look like. And, I will also add that you have to talk to your customers, okay? Early and often and constantly, in servicing. We have constant sessions with our customers one-on-one, both to ask them about how they feel about the current process, but then also help, help us create better experiences, right? Have them tell us what they like or what they don't like, putting prototypes in front of them, but we don't do that in a box, right? We're sharing all of that information, these ideas with all of, the compliance partners that have a very vested interest in everything that we do, right? We've gotta be compliant. But you have to look at the, the policy, the process, the procedures, how does data show up along that entire value chain? And then how do you leverage that, right? How do you get after that, not just to store it, but to utilize it? APIs come into play, right? Yeah. How can we, how can we do that? Customers expect you to never ask them for a data element that you they think that you already have about them. it just degrades the experience overall. And so keeping all of those things in mind as you're thinking about how to create a better customer experience is absolutely key.
Maggie Mae (
So, as we're thinking about data elements and the communication chain and the life cycle and also APIs, one of the things that comes to mind is those opt in opt out. So, some forward thinking mortgage organizations are starting to really embrace text messaging. We're seeing a lot of lift, 90% open rate and text message versus 14% an email if you're trying to get your message read. That's a key channel, for all of us to be picking up and implementing. But, along with that comes compliance concerns and honoring those opt outs. So, if you're getting leads from Zillow, your Facebook ads, your Google ads, whichever channel you wanna make sure that if they're saying yes, text me. Two things. One, you don't have to re-ask them that. So, you're exploring your text stack. I encourage you to ask, does this system, can the system receive optin permissions via, APIs or some other mechanisms? So, that you don't have to re-ask cuz you're not gonna get, we know every time we ask, we get fall through right? Every time you, if you ask them again, they're not gonna probably say yes again. So, if they've already said yes in one channel, make sure that you can pick up the yes in your communication platform and then vice versa if they opt out, it's critical that you, you are able to send those opt outs back through the other channels so that you are, respecting their preferences and you're meeting them where they wanna be. So those would be places to look.
Sandra Madigan (
When you think about building technology? how do you built it for all of these things?
Craig Rebmann (
Yeah, I think that's really interesting from the building, the technology side of it versus being the lender and you've got the compliance team and what they say, is what you're gonna do. And as soon as we talk to another client, well they're gonna do something totally different. And, then you just looking at something as simple as how much information can, should we allow the primary borrower to capture about the co-borrower? What should we allow them to provide? What should we ask them about, should we be asking them for the social and all those kinds of things. And if you ask three different lenders, you can get three different answers about how much of that we should allow. And then if you ask, the compliance teams, that's all very different too. And the truth is as a software provider, generally, we're not gonna wrap a warrant compliance. So we have to build in the configurability to allow for all of those different, interpretations. Which to your point, that really means we've gotta be talking to our customer, the lenders as well, to find out what are those kind of differences in opinion around particular regulation. But the upside is when the regulations change and when the compliance atmosphere changes, sometimes those changes can just be accommodated through configuration then, and you save yourself other difficulties of needing to do additional development work in order to accommodate those.
Sandra Madigan (
Yeah. So, you made me think of one thing, Craig, when we talk about like, when you make changes in the system to accommodate multiple interpretations of clients and all of that, at what point do you get, from a bank perspective, from a lender, from a servicer, how do you negotiate that where you wanna leverage technology that is out there that you could just pick up off the shelf and use, because now it's on Greg to give you enough configuration to keep you compliant, Right. Versus needing to build it in house because that somehow gives you a secret sauce. Because I know in our industry there's a lot of struggle there too.
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, Well, the first question I would ask is, what problem are we trying to solve? Okay. Right. are we solving a problem using technology or in spite of technology, keeping that at the forefront of any time that you're making a decision about whether to build or buy it. It really depends upon the experience you're trying to create. There is no one right answer. One size fits all. Absolutely. Every one of those problems needs to be evaluated for whether or not you bring in a third party to help with the problem you're trying to solve or try to go it alone and build the team to build the thing or the experience for the customer.
Sandra Madigan (
Yeah, and Craig, are you seeing customers of all shapes and sizes, those that have big tech departments and those that have no tech departments still leverage off the shelf solutions.
Craig Rebmann (
Yeah, all over the spectrum from having very, large scale testing efforts and, huge testing teams and a lot of, capability in that regard to, one person hammering on it is truly a full spectrum from that perspective.
Sandra Madigan (
Yeah. And Maggie, how much handholding do you do to help your clients get through some of that?
Maggie Mae (
Yeah, So, when you're looking, you want both, right? You want out of box solutions so you can get stuff quickly. There was a time in our industry that everyone seemed to be building customized software solutions, and I think we've kind of moved past some of that. And we've moved on to exactly what you're speaking to, which is configurability. So roles, controls, permissions, that's really what we're looking for. And so that the individual client can determine what their compliance tolerance is, and just as you stated, it's gonna, it's gonna vary. And so they can turn things off, they can turn things on, and then they can configure them to meet the compliance standard. And just as a point of pride, I've had compliance officers giggling when reviewing our controls,So that's never was a goal of my life, but somehow turned out to be awesome. So, that's, that's something that you want though. You wanna be able, able to go, here's, here's what recommendation that's out of the box. You can get started quickly and then here's some of the things to look at to make decisions on. So, getting to value quickly and then narrowing those controls to fit your policy.
Sandra Madigan (
Very cool. So we've talked about bridging origination, servicing the entire journey. We know there's a lot of technologies out there we know we can partner to get it done. I'm gonna sound like the annoying kid in the back of the car. Are we there yet? ? Have we arrived or is there in your mind still a lot that we can do with technology, partnerships, process data and all of that to keep moving forward?
Beverly Steele (
Well, Sandra, if we have arrived, then let's just all go home, right? I mean, I don't think so. I don't think we'll ever have had it all figured out. There will always be new problems to solve and new and higher customer expectations, right? The Google and Amazon effect are permeating other industries and we're not immune to it. And, as other technologies that may not impact the financial industry today come to be, we have to react to that. So, our work, I mean, it's a good problem I have, I guess, is that our work is never done. Yep. And there's always more, there's always more to do.
Sandra Madigan (
Awesome. Maggie, what are your thoughts? Are we there yet?
Maggie Mae (
There's always more to do. I think we're pretty close. I think, that the thing that I'm most excited about our industry today is that we are very near, I mean, we are within reaching, striking distance of a true all in one from lead through origination, through servicing, and then back around. I mean, we are very close and that's, that's exciting because for all the time that I've, been in the industry, that's something that loan officers have asked for, and organizations that I've been asking for. Can I please have one seamless experience, for themselves and for their clients? And I think, I think we're very close and we can always improve. There's gonna be all kinds of fun stuff. Augmented reality, right? You put a headset on and you're gonna go sit in an office with your client, I don't know what's gonna come. And that's what keeps it interesting.
Craig Rebmann (
I was just gonna say, it's really interesting because there's, if you go back, not even that far, like 2015, 2016, everybody was busy with dread. Everybody was trying to get the compliance piece under their belt. And then Super Bowl, rocket point of sale, everybody's working at point of sale, getting everything ready to go. And then, it's artificial intelligence and machine learning and the data extraction and so forth, and augmented reality, virtual reality, what can I put on, my, Oculus and do the appraisal virtually, right? The technology's never gonna stop. It's a constant journey. And and you think as soon as it people, all of us kind of collectively agree, there is no there, it's just a journey and it's a constant journey. I like that. Yeah. And you enjoy it. And there's always something cool and new to look at and play with and figure out, how it can make the mortgage process faster and better and easier.
Sandra Madigan (
My last question, I'll start with you Greg. We've seen us move forward in some technologies and then completely pull back. I think of, during covid e close e notarized, all of a sudden it was like, we can do that. We literally do that and everybody's so excited and now everybody's like kind like, Ooh, do we wanna do that? We can meet in person again. I mean, can't I send a notary to your house? What is it about our industry that makes us, if you talk to other industries, friends and family, we'll be like, you guys are just now getting around AI and l you're like, you know what? Fight me. There's a lot of pressure on us. Okay. Yeah. what is it about our industry that makes us go forward and then kind of black a little bit?
Craig Rebmann (
That's a really great question. I don't know that I really have a really good answer for it other than we did see it with remote online notarization during Covid really picked up and then kind of retrenched. And I think that there's some of that that just happens naturally from people. If you're pushed to it and you have to do it, you're gonna do it. But if you have an option, to Beverly's point from the very beginning when she was talking about you have people who are embracing technology and wanna do that and other people who are in their comfort zone and wanna stay there and they want, they want their handheld and want, want to be taken through it. And the reality is you're dealing with, I mean everybody is, everybody buys a house. Well, okay, maybe not everybody, 65% of everybody, but it's a wide variety of people, right? Who you interact with in the mortgage business. Are you gonna see all kinds of varieties of people with all kinds of different opinions about technology and adoption, particularly consumer adoption. Yeah. Is when there's an absolute need driving it, they'll adopt. When it's a nice to have, it starts to interesting, it starts to get a little less.
Sandra Madigan (
Maggie, what can we do from a communication to get them to adopt these newer technologies and get comfortable with it?
Maggie Mae (
Yeah. I would ask, everyone who's looking at 2023 and strategies to really support your innovators, you do have people in your organization that are on that cutting edge. That back circling back to compliance a little bit that makes you, makes your organization a little bit nervous, but you need those people in your organization to push. So, for example, one of our clients has an influencer division. So, many of you are familiar with Instagram influencers by now, some people are gonna laugh at this. They're gonna eye roll, They're generating thousands of leads and purchase leads. Everyone's hungry for purchase leads right now by supporting building technology and control around this idea of an influencer division. So, we can always be better listeners, so be good listeners of your innovators, cuz they're the ones that are gonna pull you and you might have that push pull a little bit as you're trying to, put the bumpers in. But you, you need those folks on in your organization to help push you in that direction
Craig Rebmann (
And give 'em a safe environment to fail
Maggie Mae (
In. That's right. Yeah. Absolutely.
Sandra Madigan (
What about from a US Bank perspective? How are you getting your customers to adopt?
Beverly Steele (
Yeah Absolutely, A couple of, obviously the pandemic really pushed a lot of customers to be more readily or maybe hesitantly forced volunteers. yeah, people a little bit forced, a little bit of, coercion here. But, they adopted digital because they, they frankly had to and some really weren't ready to. Some were trying and floundering a bit, right? A couple of the things that, that we did over the pandemic, for our customers, one of those things being Co browser. So if anybody here has ever had to call it and get help and have them take over your screen, take over your computer and guide the way or do the things for you, that's essentially what we brought to our customers. So a customer, calls in to the contact center and is frustrated with something that is not going well for them and they don't understand it. Maybe it's their first time trying to do, this task, right? and, they're, they're frustrated and you want them to be successful, right? And the first time they may need a little bit of help. And so co browse is that capability that, that we have delivered for our customers and it's being, it's well received, right? It's you teach a person to fish, you never have to feed 'em again in your life, right? And that's what we're trying to go for. In addition to that, as many families, brought their, some of the older folks within their, families to the table on video conferencing, people again crave that human touch and they really wanted to be able to see the human on the other end of the line, right? And context centers are notoriously, impersonal and maybe completely impersonal in some cases and just seeing that there's a human on the other side brings a little bit more of a human element to it in a digital manner. And it wasn't cutting edge technology or anything true. But it was, it was really appreciated by our customers and it brought them a little bit more readily into the digital space, I think.
Sandra Madigan (
Yeah, so teacher customers fund your innovators, keep pushing and don't get discouraged. . That's what I'm hearing. Okay. We're gonna open up for questions, guys, Any questions for any of the panelists that we have? Go ahead.
Audience Member 1 (
So is there ever consideration to take that in personal contact center and put a face within that browser for the consumer?
Beverly Steele (
Yeah, I mean, we've looked at it and you repeat that for the buddy? Oh, sure. Yeah, sorry. So the question was, looking at bringing kind of the human face or human element to a contact center strategy, and bringing the human, like essentially just like in the digital space of picture. Did I understand that right? Like showing who they are, who's on the other end of the line. Absolutely. We do that for our mortgage loan officers today. it's not something we deploy yet in the, in the servicing center, but again, we've got that technology utilization for, video chat. So, certainly it's always an opportunity. in talking to customers though, not everybody wants that. So, again, there's always the economics factor of if we build it, will they come right? Do they really want that? and so there's always a balance to strike there. Good question. Thanks for asking.
Sandra Madigan (
Any other questions? No. Well, thank you to our panelists. You guys did a fabulous job. Like threw you some curves. I knew that I hadn't told you I was gonna ask you that. Awesome. Thank you. And thank you guys.