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This is a common question I ask my clients and the responses invariably come down to two reasons: lack of knowledge and unwillingness to change
It’s also common for brokers to say they only use their CRM so they can get paid their commissions – a pretty poor reason to use multimillion dollar systems, if you ask me.
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Brokers have long baulked at using the inbuilt electronic lodgement capabilities of their CRM system because of perceived cost and effort. They complain about the costs charged by their aggregator or software provider and cite their prevalence of free lender based e-lodgement systems as a viable alternative.
They also complain (legitimately at times) of the extra effort required to enter missed data into their aggregator e-lodgement systems because of poorly built interfaces to the industry’s main e-lodgement supplier.
When combatting these debates, brokers should consider what their time is worth, given the time it takes to double data enter a loan into the lender’s free system, the lack of true back-channel reporting into their CRM and the extra effort involved in that cumbersome follow-up process. Surely it’s cost and effort that could be well spent utilising the CRM a little better
Keeping compliant
Most CRM systems allow brokers to generate the necessary National Consumer Credit Protection Act (NCCP) documents automatically based on the data entered into the CRM. A lack of effort by brokers to understand this function, and their bad data entry habits, mean the benefits of automatic NCCP document generation are impossible to use.
Brokers also say they won’t use the forms because they are not “sexy enough” and they are aggregator-centric, designed to only meet the aggregators’ compliance needs.
Aggregators create documents based on their legal advice from lawyers specialising in the creation and maintenance of NCCP requirements, and brokers need to understand that these forms are created for the specific reason of meeting legal requirements, not to be sexy.
The time and cost a broker spends on creating documents for every application is simply absurd. Use your systems forms and you could cut your processing time down by at least 20 per cent.
Spotting areas for improvement
It never surprises me when a broker says their idea of CRM is sending birthday cards to their clients.
The main reason they have this view is because the substandard quality of data entered into their system means that’s about all they can do with their data.
Brokers often fail to understand the true value in mining their database, and the only way to effectively do this is to ensure they have a complete and accurate database from the outset.
Data mining is and always will be a buzz topic for any business to learn more about their clients and use that knowledge to increase repeat revenue opportunities. Once a broker understands the true value of their data, they can start to use this to create alternate revenue streams through cross selling, marketing and general contact management.
If a broker gave up a single two-hour block to look at their CRM a little further, they would see that these underutilised areas could reap them huge rewards.
