The support model that’s building better brokers

Q. What are your thoughts on the current state of broking?

Now more than ever, home loans are a complicated product, no customer scenario is the same, and there’s so much choice out there.

What our brokers do so well is help our customers navigate through [that], particularly at the moment [where] we’ve got increased living costs, [and] we’re just coming off the back of significant interest rate rises. More and more, our brokers go above and beyond for their customers and they go a lot deeper than just providing advice on interest rates and home loans.

Q. How does Lendi Group’s centralised support model work?

It’s about three things: giving our brokers more customers, giving them more time to deal with those customers, which ultimately lands more settlements, and [giving them the] ability to grow their businesses faster and more efficiently.

If I look at our centralised service, it’s broken up into two core areas. One is at the top of the funnel and is really customer-nurturing. That’s called our associates function.

The other is more of the back-end operation. That’s called client solutions, which is really about getting the loans to the bank and ultimately ensuring that the right process happens so we can have an efficient settlement.

[They are] backed by our Lendi Group platform that supercharges a lot of the automations and helps a lot of those seamless interactions between connecting the broker, the customer, and the bank and making sure everything’s communicating effectively.

Q. What has been the response from brokers?

Nearly three-quarters of Aussie brokers and 139 stores are using this centralised support model. These stores are settling 1.75 times more company-generated loans than they were before.

Effectively, if I break down what our brokers are amazing at, they’re amazing at building relationships with their customers. The more time we can put back into their day to do that, helps them grow their businesses faster.

Q. How does the associates function nurture clients?

Our platform is working with customers behind the scenes, whether they’re a customer who has come onto the Aussie or Lendi website today or a customer where a broker had an initial appointment two to three years ago (but it didn’t result in a transaction).

We have many sophisticated journeys nurturing those customers.

When they’re ready to have an interaction, our associates function will reach out to the customer. They’re effectively an extension of the broker’s business or the store’s business. They’ll have a conversation, complete a qualification based on clear instructions, and [then] determine if this customer is ready for an appointment. If so, they’ll book an appointment.

That allows our brokers and our stores to spend more time with customers they can work through and help today. All the while knowing, behind the scenes, there’s this journey model where customers are getting really nice experiences and working along with a lot of our different products across our website and mobile app.

Q. How else is Lendi Group helping its brokers grow?

We have a number of different products both for our brokers and our customers.

Everything – from our digital platform where customers can go all the way through to our mobile app, to downloading property reports or credit scores – is about [making] sure we’re engaging with the customers at the right time and also making sure that our brokers have the right exposure to those customers at that time. This gives them the highest chance of speaking to those customers and ultimately, helping them with their needs.

And then it follows into our client solutions teams, who help with the lodgement of that application to the lender and then helping make sure there’s an efficient settlement.

Q. Do you think innovation is crucial in a competitive industry?

Innovation means our brokers stand out. Look at the experience using Uber or other digital apps; we have a minimum expectation now. It wasn’t that long ago we were calling cabs or waiting for this manual offline experience.

Consumers have this expectation that you can do something on your phone, you can see it live and it’s an efficient experience.

I think it’s more and more important now for our brokers to stand out and continue to give the customers the experiences they need and expect.

This level of innovation is super important and a big part of our strategy.