The partnership between Mortgage Brain and Primis is “absolutely critical” and will make brokers more efficient and improve the customer experience.
Primis announced earlier this year that it had brought on Mortgage Brain to help deliver its next generation of broker technology. It takes elements of Mortgage Brain’s software-as-a-service (SaaS) client relationship management (CRM) platform and adds a number of new features.
Speaking on a podcast, Richard Howells, group managing director for financial services at LSL Property Services, said: “The broker community, like every industry in every profession, is going to have to onboard modern technology in order to improve the overall customer experience for the end customer.
“I think that’s where we should start in all of this – the end consumer. Getting a mortgage, getting protection, it’s quite a daunting thing for an end customer. I think why brokers are so successful is it takes some of that pain away.
“I think what technology does is help… improve the customer experience, and allow the broker to be more efficient and to focus more of their time on the bit that really adds value, which is the advice, so that’s why we think the technology is so important.”
Zahid Bilgrami, Mortgage Brain’s CEO, agreed that it was a “true partnership” and said the Mortgage Brain hub brought together CRM and mortgage research, including criteria and affordability, as well as submissions, into one area.
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“What it helps mortgage brokers do is be more efficient and be compliant with how they operate, but at the same time, it encourages engagement with the end customer, making the interaction with the end customer easier, helping the mortgage broker if they so wish to cross- and upsell, if that’s part of what they want to do,” he added.
Bilgrami added that it being a SaaS platform meant that it would “evolve over time – we will continue to build extra functionality and integrations, and that would be for the benefit of all of our users”.
Primis firms keen to be part of pilot
Howells confirmed that it was not going to be rolled out in “one big bang”, but would be done on a “tranche-by-tranche basis”.
He noted that it had the “nice problem” that, after it had demonstrated the system in a series of broker meetings, it had “too many people” asking to be on the pilot, adding that brokers “loved it already”.
“That will kick in in the second half of this year, once we’ve gone through the build and a thorough piloting exercise,” he said.
Bilgrami said Mortgage Brain had “done this many times before” and agreed that it was “better to start with smaller groups and roll this out”.
“You learn, or you enhance the way in which you do it as you roll out to the… rest of the group. I think the other thing to bear in mind is that where things can go wrong is around migration. This… kind of devil-in-the-detail-type stuff is around migration and cutover.
“By that, I mean the use of a legacy system in the case of Primis’ toolbox and the use of the new system, so data migration is absolutely key, and the risks with doing this in an all-in-one big bang increases the risk of bad data coming across, or the wrong data coming across.
“Doing it in tranches allows a more careful and measured way of bringing that across. Also, the sort of cutover, the sort of reduction in use of an older system and the increase[d] adoption in the new system, is not something that happens overnight,” he added.
Rolling out tranche by tranche gives you ‘bigger group of advocates’
When asked about potential barriers to adoption, Howells said “brokers understand that new technology will have to be embedded in their business if they’re going to take their businesses forward”.
He added: “I think one of the other advantages of doing this on a… tranche-by-tranche basis is you build up a bigger and bigger group of advocates for the system, so busy brokers that say: ‘Now I’ve come onto the system, I’m experiencing these benefits’, and that’s… a real good influence.”
Bilgrami added that the way the system is built should make the system very “intuitive” and gives the “best user experience for brokers”.
“The user experience is one that allows brokers to start using the system without having to think too much about it,” he said.
Watch the 19:53 video, chaired by Anna Sagar, deputy editor for Mortgage Solutions, with speakers Richard Howells, group managing director for financial services at LSL Property Services, and Zahid Bilgrami, Mortgage Brain’s CEO.
