Brokers: Unleash the power of CRM

If you’re a broker, chances are you’re a people person

Maintaining strong and collaborative relationships with your clients is crucial for building long-term trust and means they are more likely to remain loyal when seeking your services in the future.

Finding a way to effectively manage your client life-cycle will help you with forward planning and up-scale the level of support you can provide.

But what in the world is CRM?

Customer relationship management (CRM) is defined by The Chartered Institute of Marketing, as “offering a dynamic approach for creating and developing customers, to fuel overall business growth.” The aim is to enhance customer relationships, improve customer retention levels, all while driving sales and growth.

By using every client interaction as an opportunity to better understand their unique circumstances you can provide the best possible service and find the right mortgage product for their needs.

Is your Rolodex gathering dust? Try CRM instead.

A CRM system could help you to manage this process from the beginning, by tracking progression and providing updates, demonstrating your commitment to your clients. This extends into aftermarket care by ensuring clients continue to feel supported even when their mortgage is secured. Offering market insights and regular communication also makes it easier to re-engage clients at renewal.

How a CRM can help:

Efficient data storage

You can easily retrieve and segment client data for targeted marketing efforts, tailoring your communication style to fit different client preferences, such as first-time buyers. A CRM also offers personalisation so you don’t have to worry about losing any of the rapport you’ve worked hard to build.

Track and Log customer interactions

There’s no need to set reminders. With a CRM you can keep a thorough log of all your client interactions and detail any actions that require follow-up. You can refer to at any time to refresh your memory and demonstrates your attention to detail. This can also help you to identify client behaviour patterns and anticipate their needs, offering proactive broker-based solutions at the right time.

Collaboration is key

As a CRM system is centralised, you can share appropriate information with colleagues, ensuring the customer experience and knowledge base stays consistent between team members. This also prevents redundant or contradictory communications and is particularly helpful if you work as part of a team.

Don’t forget to check-in

Scheduling follow-ups and check-ins at times that are specific and appropriate for your client means you can reach out at the most opportune times, enhancing the likelihood of a positive and engaging response while demonstrating attentiveness and care.

This is also beneficial when forming email marketing campaigns, as a personalised schedule enables you to craft messages relevant to each client. This may include reminders of upcoming rate changes, personalised offers, or follow-ups on previous enquiries. Customising the experience to this level increases the effectiveness of your marketing efforts.

Consider GDPR

Make sure that you stay compliant when gathering and storing client data. Whichever platform you choose should have robust data protection measures, like encryption, secure data storage, transparent processing policies and clear consent options, as well as, letting users easily access, correct, or delete their data.

Providers

Now you have an idea of the benefits of CRM, let’s cover some of the providers. There are many effective CRM platforms available for use, each with its own unique features and abilities.

TML don’t endorse any of the platforms listed below. It’s important that you carry out your own research when choosing a CRM platform that is right for your business and individual circumstances.

Salesforce

Salesforce is considered a market leader in CRM software and a key player in the development of CRM as a marketing channel. This platform offers tiered pricing, which can be affordable for all budgets and businesses. It’s a great all-rounder that offers different features.

HubSpot

One key advantage of HubSpot is integrating CRM capabilities with marketing and service tools. This offers a centralised hub of customer data alongside, email and social media marketing capabilities. HubSpot is well known for being user-friendly, which is a valuable advantage for brokers who don’t have previous CRM experience.

There are more bespoke platforms than Salesforce and HubSpot that cater specifically to mortgage brokers, offering tailored solutions backed by teams with mortgage industry expertise. Conducting your own research is crucial to finding the platform that best meets your needs.

Our recipe for setting up your first campaign

To use a CRM system effectively, you should ensure that the required resources and planning are in place to properly manage the system. This will minimise the risk of error and facilitates a smoother transition from the existing systems and practices.

Define Objectives

When implementing any change, it is essential to clearly outline campaign goals to understand what you're working towards and how to measure success and progress. These could include boosting broker enquiries geared towards a certain type of mortgage or improving customer satisfaction.

Identify Audiences

By segmenting customers based on demographics, the type of mortgage they’re looking for, employment circumstances, their working history and other relevant factors, you can tailor your services to suit them and offer high-quality customer service.

Choose Channels

Once you have identified who you’re talking to, it is important to select the most effective channels for communication, such as email or social media. Choosing the wrong channel could result in missed opportunities or wasted resources.

Develop Strategy

Carefully planning the message and timing of your communications is essential to avoid becoming redundant or spammy.

Create Collateral

Creating compelling content that grabs your audience's attention is essential in the crowded digital landscape. Well-crafted posts or templates can increase your brand's visibility and reach by engaging both existing and potential clients.

Personalise Content

But, it’s useful to note that clients are less likely to interact with generic content, so tailoring to their needs based on customer lifecycle stage, past interactions and using custom messaging can build long-lasting relationships.

Implement Automation

Various tools are available to automate workflows and trigger communications based on client actions. This helps busy brokers save time and reduce manual workload, allowing for more time looking at strategic plans and delivering client solutions. It also ensures your processes stay consistent and accurate without the risk of human error or delays.

Test and Optimise

A/B testing allows you to compare the performance of two versions of content or specific communications to see which one appeals more. This is an effective method of testing as you can gather insights and use evidence-based results to make informed decisions about campaign optimisations.

Launch Campaign

Once you have a clear idea of how you want to categorise your clients and the specific things you want to communicate to them, the campaign should be executed according to your pre-planned strategy. Following this schedule ensures that necessary personnel can track the campaign and are available to deal with any client enquires.

Measure Results

Once a campaign has been launched, tracking KPIs such as open rates, click-through rates, and new client enquiries is essential. This allows you to evaluate the campaign's success based on your objectives and update your strategy accordingly.

TML are committed to working with you to get the right deal for your clients, so contact your local BDM with your next case.

Within this article we have provided links to various external sources of guidance. Please note, we are not responsible for the content or availability of any external linked sites.