I love a good business book.
Before lockdown, my old favorites were sitting comfortably on the bookshelves, while the newer arrivals were busy piling up on the floor — ready to trip up my teenage sons when they returned late at night.
During lockdown, I read through the pile and added new favorites to the shelves. Pride of place goes to Think Again by Adam Grant . In it, Grant—Wharton’s top-rated professor — explores the benefits of challenging accepted norms, unlearning what we’ve learned, and rethinking what we think we know to open up new opportunities.
He believes that many of us spend too much time proving and justifying our preconceived ideas rather than questioning and evolving our thinking. He encourages us to behave more like scientists — remain open-minded, test theories, and give new things a go. What particularly struck me was a section where he argues that we should ditch the language of ‘best practice’ — which implies that things are done, dusted, and sorted — in favor of ‘better practice.’ Better practice reflects the fact that there’s always room to improve.
Grant’s (re)thinking is relevant to any business trying to improve their customer experience right now — and who isn’t? Customer experience isn’t fixed. People, like context, change and experience is situational and subjective. We want different things at different moments, on different days, and at different stages of our lives. Great experiences are sometimes those that leave us feeling warm inside, at other times no experience is the best possible experience — we just want things to happen as they should, smoothly, and without interruption.
Mortgage professionals shouldn’t be afraid of trying new things for their customers — listening, experimenting, and learning and the best ways to improve. New technologies offer us a fantastic opportunity to breathe life into tired processes and transform the way we interact with mortgage customers. They provide actionable insights that keep us one step ahead of our customers’ needs; they bring self-service to life, so customers have instant access to the information they need on their terms; and they ensure teams have the real-time info they need to deliver the very best experiences.
According to the latest POV from HFS Research , an impressive 71% expect an increase in adoption of emerging technologies across the mortgage and lending sectors over the next 24 months. But, as we all know, every dime is hard won in mortgage services. When margins are so tight, it’s difficult for leaders to justify significant capital investment in technology. That’s why so many Mortgage Servicing processes are still manual.
For me, one of the great benefits of outsourcing Mortgage Servicing is that it puts the promise of new technologies within easy reach while sidestepping the need to make capital investments. The right partner enables mortgage servicers to explore the huge difference that fresh insights and streamlined processes make. And they can enjoy the cost, efficiency, and compliance benefits that these technologies bring, without taking on the responsibility for owning them and keeping them up to date.
Grant writes, “don’t preach from intuition, teach from evidence.” With that in mind, the report explores how outsourcing to Sourcepoint has given a leading mortgage servicer the confidence and capability to build better experiences , and a stronger bottom line.
If Mortgage Servicing outsourcing is something you’re thinking about or would like to rethink, do please get in touch .
