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ISCOVER
Good quality customer service is a broker's best bet for winning repeat business and client retention.
By: Cathy Dimarchos
General Manager
Sintex
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While the industry has undoubtedly changed significantly over the past few years, one thing has remained constant: the customer's desire for quality service. 
The banking industry has become acutely aware that good quality customer service is paramount to repeat and referral business. But despite understanding the importance of quality service, the question begs: are we actually meeting our clients' needs and expectations?
Marketing and advertising is on the increase and the focus is to service and understand the client, but do we really mean it?
As a general rule, most non-banks and brokers have strived to provide good quality customer service and this has always served them well, however, it is time to reflect and revisit the type of service that we are all providing.
Picking the winner
Most non-bank lenders, funders, and to some extent brokers, are ex-bankers who realised some time ago that there was more to offer their clients. These brokers wanted to ensure they provided the service that each client deserves: personal service.
Often, however, this ‘personal' service is lost in the loan process when a broker deals with the major banks.
Over the past two years we have seen the market share of the big banks increase dramatically. However, what most people have not taken into account is that once we feed the majors with business (our clients), those clients are swallowed up and lost in the system.
Once again they find themselves in a situation of being a bank client... yet they originally went to a non-bank lender for their loan and for the service.
As an industry, and as a collective, we need to once more place the client in a position where they will receive the service they desire from somebody who is more than willing to provide an open ear.
To ensure that you provide your client with this type of service, you will need to place yourself in a position where you are less reliant on bank products and offer your client a full suite of products that are branded with your name and your logo.
Remember, they need to be your client to ensure that your service will be available to them from the initial application to the day that they pay out the facility and want something else.
It could be as simple as your client wanting to have a ‘set and forget' facility, or that they do not want their assets all tied up together; alternatively, maybe they just want to be known by name and treated like an individual... remembering at all times that transparency, trust and relationship all form part of the service that you are offering.
This is your key and your opportunity to once more ‘own' your client.
Running a good race
The tide has turned with pricing. Today, non-bank lenders are providing competitively priced products that rival the big four, and in some instances, non-banks are even leading the way.
Use this changing environment as an opportunity to re-educate consumers on all the reasons why they have approached you and why they chose not to walk into the bank's door.
Just remember that it is not always about rate, so don't make it about rate. We need to learn to sell a product in its totality, and not just based on rate. If you know your client you will know what things are important to them. Keep the focus on what your client wants and what they don't want.
Listen to them and take on board what they present as items of importance, it may not always be as simple as what I have stated above. Give your client the service that they deserve and lead the way.
