My Mortgage Story: Customer Retention Plans are A Must
I have been asked time and time again about who owns the customer. Well, I can tell you this from experience, once you sell off the loan to a lender, they now belong to that lender. So, how do you retain your customers? I believe in follow-ups as a part of a complete retention plan.
Most Brokers and Originators should realize that it is up to you to keep your customer. You retain them by treating them as your customer that means going above and beyond. In this week's piece, I will be sharing some of my tips on customer retention.
Now remember, this is what I do and you can modify any of these or come up with your own idea, but you have to take the steps to keep your customers coming back. Even if you have a company that helps you and sends your customers back to you, you should still have a system that helps keep you in the mind of your customer.
After I close the loan, I send a personal note to the customers thanking them for allowing me to help them. It is a handwritten note, short, but to the point. I also send one to both realtors on a purchase and then follow up a week later with a phone call asking to sit down for coffee and talk about what I can do to help them.
I put their name into my CRM program to follow, which in turn, helps you spend less on money on an expensive CRM, because for the first few years, I developed my own follow up. I did this by calling my customer at least once every 4 months, even if you just leave them a message. Tell them that you are just following up to see how they are doing and this is a good time to ask about any referral possibilities there may be.
Once every 6 months, I send them a postcard or note just to keep in touch. If rates are changing, I also may suggest that a potential refinance may be a good thing. If not, it is just a way to keep your name in front of them.
At the one year mark, I send a note and call to advise them that I am reviewing their current loan and to see if there is anything that I can do you help them. It is also a great time to go over their insurance and to potentially generate future referrals for your growing referral networks like insurance agents, CPA’s, financial planners, etc. This allows you to make yourself available to the customer and shows how eager you are to help them.
Now here's a little story. I have a group of customers that I have done purchases and refinances for over the last 18 years. Each and everyone of these customers know me as their mortgage guy.
When they decide to start looking for a home, when their Realtor tells them they need a person to get them financed, they say, “that’s ok, I have my mortgage guy that will handle this.” I strongly believe that my follow-ups have everything to do with that.
By creating your own spreadsheet from the loan closing with a monthly follow-up, you can limit the need or a lengthier 4-month follow-up approach, again, it's all preference and time management. When you break it down, you are looking at 2 hours every month to make a contact which still gives you plenty of time to go get additional business.
These are some models to follow though creating your own follow-up plan that revolves are your schedule is also highly recommended.
Don Frommeyer is the National Mortgage Chair for Agility Resources Group, and a long time past president and CEO of NAMB. He can be reached at dfrommeyer@agilityresourcesgroup.com.
