Developing a Future-Proof Integration Strategy in Mortgage Lending

In an increasingly commoditized environment, there is only one solution for lenders looking to differentiate their solutions and services from the competition: the customer journey.

The customer journey is powered by technology and fueled by consumer demand. When a gap in your technology interrupts your customer’s journey, they risk falling off the journey you’re taking them on in favor of a smoother path.

Yet lenders often build out their technology ecosystem one fragmented tool at a time. Disparate systems can lead to several problems for your organization including increased spend on system upgrades and maintenance, vendor relationship difficulties and decreased ROI.

How can you formulate a future-proof integration strategy, so you can embrace new technology – and all its promises – to provide your prospects and customers with the seamless experience they demand?

Know Your Goal

The temptation for lenders to adopt every latest technological tool and digital trend often drag organizations into difficult integration projects. The best way to avoid shiny-object syndrome and franken-systems that slow everyone down is to know your goal and what you’re trying to accomplish. It’s critical to ensure your process, people and systems work together seamlessly to help you meet your goal and improve the quality of the customer experience so you can increase the lifetime value of your customers.

We’ve said it before, and we’ll say it again: people don’t actually want technology – they want what technology can do for them.

Take time to define your vision and your goals at a granular level, down to the loan officer. Your analysis should include:

  • The financial why.
  • The cultural why.
  • The loan officer why.

Executive Alignment

To ensure new systems and integrations will support current and future requirements, you need to involve the right people from the onset of the project. While most organizations include the C-Suite, IT and finance, many neglect other key roles specific to the industry including the leaders in production, marketing and compliance.

Map Your Customer Journey

No matter the size of your organization, you face limited time, money and resources to build a productive, profitable technology ecosystem. Mapping out the customer lifecycle at each stage ensures efficiency and effectiveness of your efforts. Pinpoint gaps in the journey and identify two or three ways technology can bridge them. Once you outline a roadmap, follow it ruthlessly to avoid taking on too many new tools and solutions, too soon.

Technology Partners with Modern, Open APIs

It’s unrealistic for lenders to take on dozens of technology partners. Managing a single vendor relationship is often a full-time job. Whether you want a tech partner to do the legwork for you or you want the flexibility to build your ecosystem from scratch, look for technology partners who have modern, open APIs.

Open APIs allow you to bring in best-of-breed solutions that work together seamlessly in an ecosystem so you get the best customer experience collectively and can go to market quickly.

Adding any new technology that doesn’t play nicely with the rest of your marketing tech stack decreases productivity. The Total Expert Marketing Operating SystemTM (MOS) centralizes your data, sales and marketing activities and your tools – all your tools – in a single platform to skyrocket productivity, boost adoption across your technology stack and realize a maximum ROI on your technology long term.