Charging a client fee has become second nature for the majority of mortgage broking firms and advisers. If for any reason you are not charging a fee and want to start doing so, but maybe are concerned about how this would be perceived by your clients, then why not test the water first?
You can then always start by introducing an application fee on every mortgage, maybe £95 or £125?
Very quickly you will see how straight forward this is to do, and how comfortable your customers will be paying you a fee, as they do for other professionals services.
The next step, should you choose to take a staged approach, is to then charge an additional completion fee.
An increasing number of advisers are now charging the fee on mortgage offer rather than completion, and you can totally understand why with the huge amount of time, effort and cost involved to get to that point.
Even if you have not charged existing customers fees in the past, do not feel that you can’t when arranging a remortgage or further mortgages for those clients.
Your customer will fully understand as they have already experienced the excellent service you have provided, and will be more than happy to pay a fee to receive that standard of service again.
The work involved is increasing, and therefore so are the costs, and so you either have to absorb that additional cost as a business owner or adviser, or charge what you are worth.
You may have a fee policy currently, but how closely is it adhered to?
If you have administration support, how much is each mortgage application costing, and are those costs being covered if the mortgage does not proceed?
It’s not about who is charging what locally, it is down to providing a superb customer experience, charging what you are worth, and your fee representing great value for money.
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Next week:
• Do what you do best and outsource the rest
Followed by:
• What does your brand mean to consumers?
• How to recruit from outside the industry
For more, see Peter’s interview last week with Mortgage Solutions editor, Victoria Hartley
