This Practice Can Help Lenders Stop Losing Customers


Chazz huston
Head of Strategic Alliances, Black Knight Secondary Marketing Technologies

A few months ago I started to buy a new car. During this chase, I scoured dozens of auto manufacturer and dealer websites to browse a wide variety of makes, models, and prices.

With so much to choose from, I entered the process with the urge to compare cars and costs to narrow down the best options for my needs. Thanks to the fact that most auto retailers list their products and prices online, this process was easy for me for me to follow in my spare time.

However, consider the stark contrast between buying vehicles online and the typical mortgage buying experience. When customers expect full transparency and convenience (think the Amazon experience), it’s remarkable that most lenders have kept many of their current practices for so long.

While the mortgage point-of-sale experience has improved by leaps and bounds in recent years, the average buying experience still leaves a lot to be desired.

A broken shopping experience

Put yourself in the shoes of your potential customers for a moment. You are ready to buy a house or refinance your loan, so you visit a few lender websites. You will find client testimonials, photos of the management team and promises of a personalized mortgage experience. Usually, however, something very important is missing: the products and prices of the lender.

In fact, Black Knight has reviewed hundreds of lender websites and found that only 32% of them make the prices readily available on their websites. Many lenders may find it difficult to go against tradition and advertise product prices. But consumer expectations have changed – and they will only continue to change. Credit institutions that do not respond to changing consumer demands are at risk of going bankrupt.

When potential customers visit your website today, they are specifically looking to browse your products and their prices, as if they were accessing any other type of retailer site. Data shows that consumers begin their mortgage research 171 days before they complete an application.

This means that lenders have nearly six months to grab the attention of a potential client simply by making available the information they want. Failure to do so means that these opportunities may be lost on the lenders who offer this basic information.

After all, why would a customer want to disclose their Social Security number and other personal information to access Lender A’s rates when they can instantly view them on Lender B’s website?

Technology opens up new possibilities for products and prices

Fortunately, innovative technology and application programming interfaces (APIs) make it easy for lenders to display accurate product and price information when and where their customers want it – from websites to self-service applications and everything else.

Thanks to APIs, consumers can now find the best mortgage product and price on their own, whereas just a few years ago this task could only be done by an originator.

TO Black Knight, we recognize the importance of improving the shopping experience for consumers, and we have focused significant resources on helping our customers do just that. Our best-in-class Optimal Blue product, pricing and eligibility (EPI) engine serves as a utility for the industry by making product and pricing accessible from any solution throughout. of the loan life cycle.

For example, thanks to the power of APIs, our customers can integrate a pricing widget on their home page or in a customer application. Additionally, Black Knight’s extensive partner network gives Optimal Blue PPE users the ability to build a custom technology stack that meets their unique needs with turnkey integrations.

The time for improvement is now

Tackling the issue of product and price transparency should be high on every lender’s task list. Fortunately, this challenge is easier than ever with modern technology.

Beyond the significant benefits that product and price transparency adds to the customer experience, including rates in your lending ecosystem can help with sales, lead generation, conversion, back efficiency. -office, secondary marketing and more.

Your potential customers are already expecting it and the technology is available to make it happen. Don’t risk falling behind the competition and losing business with the “like we’ve always been” thinking.