- 2 days ago
- #mortgagesolutions
- #wfg
- #mortgagetech
What if the key to growing your business was hidden in your customers’ feedback? In this episode of Ten Minute Talks, Diego Sanchez, President of HousingWire, sits down with Dan Bailey, Senior Vice President at WFG Enterprise Solutions, to discuss the impact of customer feedback on shaping business strategy. Dan shares how understanding customer perception and implementing structured feedback mechanisms, such as Net Promoter Scores, has transformed the way WFG approaches customer experience.
This discussion also covers practical strategies for requesting referrals, listening to customer concerns, and using feedback to refine business strategy. By focusing on transparency and proactive engagement, businesses can foster trust, enhance customer satisfaction, and achieve sustainable success in today’s competitive landscape.
#MortgageSolutions #WFG #MortgageTech
This discussion also covers practical strategies for requesting referrals, listening to customer concerns, and using feedback to refine business strategy. By focusing on transparency and proactive engagement, businesses can foster trust, enhance customer satisfaction, and achieve sustainable success in today’s competitive landscape.
#MortgageSolutions #WFG #MortgageTech
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NewsTranscript
00:00Welcome to today's conversation. I'm Diego Sanchez, President of HousingWire and your
00:12host for this episode. Joining me is Dan Bailey, Senior Vice President at WFG Enterprise Solutions.
00:20Dan, so great to have you on the show today.
00:22Great to be here. Thanks, Diego.
00:24Dan, WFG is taking both time and cost out of the mortgage process for lenders and borrowers.
00:32At a high level, how is your unified approach making that possible?
00:38Sure. Happy to explain. So I'm responsible for our WFG Enterprise Solutions Group within WFG.
00:44So WFG, National Title Insurance Company is a National Title Insurance Underwriter.
00:49We have several different, I like to call them silos, right?
00:51Several different segments of our business, including direct operations, agency services, and our enterprise solutions group.
00:59So our enterprise solutions group is comprised of VOLI, our marketing automation tools, lender services, which is title settlement services across the country nationwide,
01:12valuation services through value trust, and we also offer default services.
01:17So for us, you know, presenting a lender with kind of, you know, end-to-end solutions really helps us maximize whether it's integrations, whether it's workflow, whether it's how we're approaching the customers and the borrowers,
01:30and cut out a lot of the, you know, stuff that kind of happens that mucks up the process, right?
01:36So whether it's, again, helping our lenders place orders with multiple vendors, having really clear and succinct marketing information for them,
01:46all of that allows us to leverage our collective services to provide a faster, better process, which helps reduce redundancies and take time and cost out of the process.
01:55This has been one of our core principles at WFG since I've been here, since 2013, and WFG since 2010.
02:02So our focus is always customer, take time and cost out, collaborate, you know, and we're here just for our customers.
02:10So I think collectively that allows us to do that.
02:13I love the way you described that, taking the muck out of the middle.
02:16The muck, the mess, yes.
02:17Now, the decision point has shifted from a market-facing tool to more of an Intel inside model.
02:26Can you explain what that transition means?
02:28Oh, sure.
02:29So since I've been in this industry, which unfortunately you can tell by my gray hair, it's been longer than I care to admit.
02:35But, you know, when I first started in this industry, I'll never forget it, right?
02:39It was, you know, way back in 2003, incredibly busy, and the way that you got search data was really sending an order to someone remotely who'd walk in.
02:47Everybody started to start walking in the courtroom, get the stuff, go to the records office, you know, write it down, send it in, and we create a commitment.
02:55And obviously that's evolved over the years with automated databases and other ways that you can access that same data.
03:01So back in 2018-19, we introduced Decision Point as an upfront tool for our customers.
03:09And what it allowed our customers to obtain near instantly is a decision, right?
03:14Is this a title for this order clear?
03:17Do I have issues?
03:18Is there things I've got to work through?
03:19Is there potential pitfalls that could derail this transaction or have it take longer than I'd like, right?
03:25It was great, right?
03:26Everybody's out there.
03:27There's all kinds of different types of competitor tools out there.
03:29The problem was it was hard for a lot of our lender customers to adopt, right?
03:34Because not everybody had it.
03:35They weren't prepared for it.
03:36What do they do?
03:37Okay, this one's clear.
03:38This one's not.
03:38Theoretically, you think, oh, well, that's easy.
03:40This one just goes on a happy path.
03:42This one goes on a sad path.
03:43But then managing that became problematic.
03:46And then, you know, it gets compounded by what we've been dealing with the last three years, which is a shallow refinance market.
03:52So what we've done is said, okay, let's take those same learnings and that same capability that we had in that upfront tool to our customers, which is still available today.
04:01However, customers could use that if they care to.
04:03But let's start bringing that internally.
04:05Let's start looking at our own internal search process, how we can continue to automate that process, make it faster, better, more consistent.
04:12And so that intelligence inside really refers to taking the same tools that we presented to our customers and then using it internally to expedite our overall process.
04:21And what that does is it allows for a more predictable process, right?
04:25You know that, hey, if I'm getting 1,000 units or 5,000 units, my title turn times are going to be the same.
04:31Also allows us to continually reduce those turn times, right, and still have a high-quality product.
04:36So it's not just about getting data, putting on a form, and spitting it out, right?
04:40It's getting data, putting it on a form, making sure there's a QC process involved with that, to identify the potential issues, having those cured, and then delivering a product at a consistent time frame and a high-quality, no matter what that volume is.
04:52So that's what we've really focused on these last five years.
04:56Now, early on in the conversation, you mentioned value trust, where you're bringing services to one platform that's integrated with ICE.
05:05How does that translate into efficiency gains for your lender clients?
05:10When we first introduced value trust, there's a couple things value trust does, right?
05:14I mean, one, it's an AMC, so we provide national valuation, appraisal management services.
05:19But then from a platform standpoint, you know, initially, the reason why we felt value trust was such a valuable tool for us was that it allows our customers to automate the appraisal management process and the appraisal report itself, right?
05:34So just by that, you know, when you get an appraisal report, instead of looking at a PDF document, everything's digitized, it makes it much easier for QC review, really expedites that process.
05:45Over the years, that's developed into our integration with Encompass and ICE to continually allow our lenders and our customers to better use that data.
05:55And then it grows into a much bigger tool, right?
05:57It's a vendor management tool.
05:59So it's not just managing the ITRUST services or WFG services.
06:03It's any other vendor you want on the platform, right?
06:05It's not limited to appraisal.
06:07It's not limited to title.
06:08It's a vendor management tool.
06:09So it makes it very easy for customers and lenders to better allocate their orders between their providers, scorecard their providers, understand where their performance is.
06:19And they're really diving into the data at a level that they couldn't before.
06:24And sometimes it's a lot of that partnership that we have, right?
06:27This might be interesting to you.
06:28Here's where your orders are.
06:29Here's where we're seeing longer turn times.
06:30Here's where we're seeing, you know, longer app to close times.
06:33Whatever it may be, we could share that information and make it really valuable for our customers to make better decisions about their business, how they want to handle it.
06:39And then ultimately, I think the decision is no-brainer.
06:42They always want to give more orders to WFG and our related companies, right?
06:45And that's the plan.
06:48Absolutely.
06:48I mean, it sounds to me like you've built a unified platform for all that you're working on to clear out that muck in the middle.
06:57How does this unified platform give you the ability or an advantage in leveraging AI and eliminating those mundane tasks?
07:08Well, I think, you know, certainly I can't speak for what other companies do, right?
07:12But, you know, in my previous roles in this industry, you know, some of the companies I've worked with would have different production systems for title or different production system for the closing process or different productions.
07:23You know, everything was separated out and made it very difficult for us whenever there was, you know, any type of enhancement or any type of development that we wanted to do.
07:34You know, it always was contingent upon, well, how does this system interact with this system and how do I make sure this is all going to work, right?
07:40And then what's the development time and how long is that going to take, right?
07:43So it becomes a constraint in your environment, right?
07:45So now that we're all on one platform, right, an enhancement here gets shared over here very, very quickly, right?
07:52There's not a lot of that.
07:53Well, we've got to figure out how those two systems talk to each other now.
07:57And ultimately, it benefits our customers, right?
08:00Our customers now, if they have an issue that might be dealing with, you know, one of my direct operations in Washington or Oregon, they call in and have a question for me.
08:08Well, I can help them out.
08:10Even on the back end, if there's a claim that occurs, you know, our claims counsel or claims team, they're on the same system that we are.
08:17So instead of, you know, putting out a document request, telling that, ensure that, hey, give me six months, I got to wait to get all the documents back, they can access it right away, right?
08:27So it just expedites the overall process and takes out that internal muck, right?
08:31That internal constraints that you have trying to speak between systems and I don't know how to use this system.
08:37I'm used to this system.
08:38What do I do?
08:38You know, all that stuff's gone.
08:39Everybody knows how to use this system.
08:41It makes it very easy for us to react to our customers.
08:43And whether that's, like I mentioned, on the back end where there might be a claim issue or on the front end where our customers are just looking to integrate on multiple platforms for us, it's really easy to do because we're on just one.
08:54You know, a few weeks ago, I had the opportunity to have a conversation with Pat Stone, the CEO of your company, of WFG.
09:03And he talked a lot about post-transaction surveys and using those to optimize the business.
09:09Could you tell us a little bit more about how that feedback loop that you've set up helps you to serve your customers and ultimately their borrowers better?
09:20Sure.
09:20Yeah.
09:20So I think in this industry, especially as a national title and settlement producer, provider, vendor, partner, whatever you want to call it.
09:30I prefer partner.
09:31You know, you're always measured on how fast you can turn title, how fast you can clear the title, you know, how fast it takes to prepare a settlement statement, you know, how fast you get post-closing done.
09:41And those are things that, you know, for our company, it's very easy for us to manage throughout our conversation today with how we can be very consistent with our title turn times and our other services through the process automation we've implemented.
09:53And that's all great.
09:55We green on all those scorecards, but what we asked ourselves, you know, probably eight, nine years ago now is, well, what if nobody likes us, right?
10:02I think I'm a nice person, but the people that we're working with might think we're a bunch of jerks, right?
10:06So we implemented a net promoter score process where on every transaction that we have, whether it's interacting with our customers, whether it's interacting with consumers, borrowers, you know, we're just asking them, would you refer us to one of your colleagues?
10:21You know, did you like working with us?
10:22Yes or no.
10:23And that data has been invaluable, right?
10:26It's on a live dashboard.
10:27We can see it as it comes in throughout the day.
10:29If someone's not happy, which I'd like to tell you, hey, we're 100%, everybody's happy all the time, right?
10:34You know I'm relying, right?
10:35It's sometimes things happen.
10:37Not possible.
10:37It's not, right?
10:38So it allows us to identify those areas where something went wrong and corrected, right?
10:43It's a feedback loop.
10:44We're able to reach back out to that consumer, reach out to the processor, whomever it may be, and say, hey, what did we do wrong?
10:50How did we make it better, right?
10:51What can we do for you in this transaction to make it better for you?
10:55Apologize, right?
10:56Hey, this should have happened this way.
10:57What else can we do for you?
10:58But it's been really, really valuable for us and helps us better set up our teams.
11:02You know, one of the underlying messages here is that we are all about customer service.
11:07NPS score is reflective of that with scores over 90.
11:10Then all this other stuff we're doing with automation and process improvement, taking time out, you know, what it allows us to do better and better every day is interact on a personal level, right?
11:19When someone comes in and they have a question, they don't understand what's going on with their transaction.
11:23When's it going to close?
11:24You know, we want to be able to be there and spend as much time as possible interacting with that consumer or a client or whomever it may be to make sure that they're satisfied, they understand what's happening.
11:34You know, as you know, refinance, purchase transactions, they can be very confusing, especially for folks that might do them once or twice in their life.
11:40You know, we do hundreds and thousands of, not hundreds of thousands, but hundreds or thousands a month, depending upon the market.
11:46So, hey, we're happy to answer those questions.
11:48We're happy to help out.
11:49And all those tools allow us to better do that and spend that time to make sure that that person is satisfied.
11:54All right. So we've talked about the unified platform.
11:58We've talked about getting rid of that muck in the middle, which I love that expression.
12:04And we just talked about this feedback loop that you've built where you're able to optimize on a transaction by transaction basis, which is amazing.
12:14So what's next?
12:15What are you what are you building next that will help you transform the mortgage process?
12:21Well, I think we're in a very fascinating time, right?
12:24We're very much, I think, at the tip of the iceberg as far as what AI can do and how it can help.
12:32And, you know, we've challenged our teams, right?
12:34We've challenged our teams to look at the different engines out there, help us better determine what's good for us, what works, what doesn't work.
12:42I think we're going to see a lot of that continue to influence how we deliver services to our customers,
12:48how it just makes us better providing customer service, and then allows you to react better, too, right?
12:54You know, I remember years ago, and I keep dating myself.
12:58I hate to do that.
12:58But, you know, experience tells me, you know, just in a simple integration years ago would take months and months and months, right?
13:04All of that can be expedited now with the tools that are out there.
13:07And, again, our goal, implement things that are smart, make sure that we're able to deliver high-quality products quickly,
13:14and then also leverage those tools to allow our employees to provide better service to our customers.
13:21That's what we're going to continue to focus on.
13:23We're going to continue to focus on driving that customer service.
13:26And then, ultimately, all of those tools allow us to provide consumers with better-priced products as we move forward.
13:33You know, certainly, I understand it's a price-competitive environment.
13:36You know, we want to make sure the products and services that we have are very competitive,
13:40but then there's also a high-quality customer service tool.
13:44Not only, you know, whether it's transactional questions, procedural questions, diving in and figuring out how we can just do things better with our customers,
13:52that's where we want to be, and that's where I think we'll continue to grow up.
13:56Dan, I really appreciate you joining me today.
13:58This is a really interesting conversation about a really important part of the home sale and home purchase process.
14:06Thank you so much for joining me today.
14:08Hey, my pleasure, Diego. Thanks for having me. Really appreciate it.
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