Fast Credit Program Drives Fla. Lender's Telemarketing

Now that the mortgage industry has figured out how to respond to customers in minutes, HomeSide Lending is rolling out a program that does part of the job in seconds.

The Jacksonville, Fla., company is using the capability as the centerpiece of a telemarketing drive - where quick responses are essential - to hold on to customers when they refinance or purchase another home.

The automated program, which supplies telephone sales representatives with customized credit reports in as little as 30 seconds, is meant to give HomeSide an edge in an industry where speed has become a major factor.

Customers want to complete the borrowing process as quickly as possible, said Yvonne M. Hartshorn, a real estate agent with Keyes Co., Miami. "Anything that shaves time is very good."

The quick credit program "allows us to satisfy our customers' need for speed," said Dan Scheuble, executive vice president in charge of the automated system.

By quickly getting credit reports onto their screens, HomeSide representatives can rapidly gauge customers' financial standing and then work with them to complete the loan, Mr. Scheuble said. "This allows us to be more efficient behind the scenes."

In the past, loan officers had to wait several minutes to access a credit report, and then they would have to scroll through pages of data to get a full sense of a customer's credit picture.

HomeSide, formed from the mortgage units of Barnett Banks Inc. and Bank of Boston, engaged Credit Network, a Framingham, Mass., mortgage automation company, to design the system. It quickly supplies telemarketers with a summary of prospective customers' debts and payment histories. The system then spotlights any delinquent credits before providing a detailed credit history.

This type of system has never been used before for telemarketing, said Richard Downing, executive vice president at the Credit Network. "We designed this at HomeSide's request."

Nearly 30 HomeSide phone representatives, operating from a telemarketing center at the company's headquarters, are using the system to snare repeat business from borrowers who want to refinance or are moving and need a new mortgage.

Recapturing these customers "is a critical part of our business," Mr. Scheuble said.

He said HomeSide, with its file of almost one million loans, wants to stanch the 10% runoff that portfolios average annually.

HomeSide is also using the system for a fledgling effort to offer mortgages to American Airlines customers under a program that awards borrowers' frequent-flier miles.

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