Five Star [1] has completed its eighth webinar this year, highlighting topics ranging from mortgage servicing and communications management, to outsourcing and the benefits of AI-powered products. Collaborating with Messagepoint [2] to gain insight on modernizing and managing borrower communications, Five Star Editor-in-Chief David Wharton led the floor with an open-panel discussion.
Speakers Patrick Kehoe, EVP of Product Management at Messagepoint, and Duwaine Thomas, Executive Consultant, Newbold Advisors LLC —both with more than 20 years of industry experience each under their belt—shared their suggestions and strategies on increasing borrower communication in a post-pandemic environment. Among the topics discussed were taking back control of the borrower communication process to reduce cycle times and costs; controlling authoring and review cycles; and the adoption or AI (artificial intelligence) and automation in a new lending world.
Post COVID-19 Reality Looks Digital
“COVID caused us to really look at our infrastructures, how we do business, and what we need to change,” said Thomas. “It forced us to look at very rapid changes in our environment, whether it was relocating staff into their homes to be able to keep the business operational, or dealing with communications that we had to provide to our borrowers. Servicers did not get a break from the fast pace of change, and the changes that were affecting borrower communication.”
Kehoe detailed some best practices for modernizing borrower communications, underlining the importance of redirecting away from document-centric approaches, and shifting to a more centralized control.
“Making sure you have the right content and the right messaging going into those communications, there’s an opportunity to use AI to identify and improve quality of those messages,” said Kehoe. “We believe that by combining customer communication management with tools that are a part of this process, along with content intelligence, you can build better content management.”
Too many mortgage servicers are at the mercy of third-party service providers and outdated systems when it comes to managing borrower communications. Overall, the webinar speakers agreed that the key is to regain control of the narrative surrounding the borrower communication process to eliminate operation silos between print and digital communications, ultimately delivering better borrower experiences.
Five Star's complimentary webinar presentations feature insights from experts within the lending and servicing industry, and if you've missed them live, they can be accessed on-demand by clicking here [3].
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