How we use technology to manage a large database of prospects and clients.

In any given month we touch several thousand leads from a variety of sources. New leads are allocated in real time to our loan officers during their assigned shift based on a variety of factors including the states they are licensed in. To manage this volume, we use Marksman, a CRM tool developed by Mortech, Inc for the mortgage industry. There are several other lead management / CRM systems available to the mortgage industry such as leads360 and Kaleidico. All of these systems appear to be good at scaling to large and small organizations.

We have found it critical to offer accurate and upfront rate quotes to borrowers based on the most recent pricing available. Rate and price information is uploaded into Marksman from the various investors we sell loans to throughout the day. Within seconds of the receipt of a lead it is “decisioned” in Marksman and sent an email response of the rate for the programs requested.

For each offer we make, our loan officers follow up immediately with a phone call. The purpose of the call is to follow up on the offers we made, and verify the information we received. For all borrowers, regardless of whether or not we can reach them on the phone, we send a comprehensive Good Faith Estimate of Settlement Costs to the email address provided. Within Marksman are three features that we rely on to keep track of our actions, history and tasks.

Distribution Manager:
This feature allows us to schedule Loan Officers and lead distribution by shift. Allocation of leads is done in a round robin fashion. If a loan officer is busy, on vacation, or has more leads than they can say grace over, we simply turn them off so leads aren’t assigned to someone that is not going to respond to them.

History:
Marksman logs each activity related to a specific prospect from the time the lead is assigned and decisioned. In addition to the standard contact schedule for each lead, loan officers can manually add notes which assist them in remembering a specific conversation with a specific borrower in addition to the time and date it took place.

Task Management:
One of the greatest challenges for any sales person is answering the question “Who do I contact next?” Marksman greatly simplifies this through the ability to assign a specific task to a specific prospect, for example “Follow up on the GFE’s.”

As far as results are concerned, our close rate per lead source ranges from 0% to as high as 15%. The average close rate for all of our lead sources over the past 12 months have averaged nearly 6%. While I can’t quote a specific ROI as it relates to our investment in Marksman, I can say that being able to respond quickly as a result of their technology certainly has it’s benefits over our competitors that delay responding to leads for more than thirty minutes.

To listen to a recent podcast with Don Kracl of Mortech click here.

To listen to a recent podcast with Bill Rice with Kaleidico click here:

In my next post I’ll share some information on the technology that we use to create a follow up campaign for our prospects.