Karl Griffin (pictured), founder and CEO of JammJar, said he observed how CRMs were used in other sectors and, by comparison, the technology the mortgage sector had did not “seem very efficient”.
He said other CRMs could “do amazing things at an amazing scale”.
The CRM as a record keeper
Griffin said: “It seems like in the mortgage industry, there are very few firms out there that have hit across the golden seam of productivity, yet they’re all using some version of a CRM system.
“What they’re actually doing, for the most part, is using the CRM as a record for the advice that they’ve given, so in the future, they can stand behind it or spot opportunities. A lot of the work [that] amounts to the advice given isn’t happening in the CRM system; it’s happening in email inboxes, spreadsheets and anywhere but the CRM.”
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Griffin said this was because updating and maintaining systems was “onerous” for advisers, and those working with many clients at a time did not have the “bandwidth, patience or appreciation of the value that can come from updating a CRM system”.
He said that only when a case was ready for submission many advisers finally put case details into a CRM.
“By then, most of the work is done, and so [advisers] don’t get the benefit of that. You end up with this bare-bones record that’s just there as evidence of a sale that happened, and that’s quite unique to this industry,” Griffin said.
JammJar is holding a webinar called ‘Are the days of the traditional CRM numbered?’ on 17 September, to question the broad way of working and inefficient practice of people and technology “working in opposing directions”.
“That needs to die. We need to move on. Confine that to the history books, and take advantage of what technology offers today in terms of better ways of working,” he added.
The next era of CRM technology starts now
Griffin said JammJar launched its technology system to accelerate this “inflexion point” in CRM technology and herald the new ways of working.
JammJar does not describe its platform as a CRM, but rather an operating system, as “that pays more respect to the technology brokers use today, being more than a system of record that they have to maintain manually for hours every week”.
When asked about some brokers using multiple CRMs before submitting a case on the platform required by their firm, network or club, Griffin said this was “a validation of the problem that we’ve identified”.
“Brokers want technology that helps them run their business, serve their customers, scale their revenues. Yet so many of them think they’re not getting that from the CRM that they’re provided.
“They’ll begrudgingly maintain that system, and also maintain another disconnected system in the hope that it gives them an edge. That is the wildest damnation of the incumbent technology that exists,” Griffin said.
He continued on to say that some CRM providers had not caught on to this, because they saw networks and clubs as their customer, rather than the adviser using the system.
Acknowledging that mandating technology was important for compliance, he said this could also constrain the broker, as technology needed to work in unison with their process.
Griffin said JammJar proved it was possible to have a compliant system that championed the adviser and client experience, but other incumbent systems exposed a “wide gap” between the compliance-led approach and technological capabilities.
He hopes for “huge improvements” in CRM technology over the next decade or so, but questioned if brokers were patient enough to wait for this change and whether firm decision-makers would continue to prioritise compliance.
Griffin said current CRMs were “buckling under” the pressure of the various ways clients wanted to be contacted, noting that some networks and clubs told him that the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) did not allow the use of WhatsApp, but he had seen no evidence of this.
“WhatsApp’s one of the most secure communication methods out there. You can exchange documents with it. You can audit conversations. The question is, how do you make sure that all of the different ways that you’re exchanging information with your customers all root back to a single system of record? Then, how do you make sure that all of that data is being put to work, taking advantage of tools like AI to automate the downstream processes?” he noted.
Griffin said customers loved and expected instant, digital communication, but they also wanted the option to speak to someone on the phone for more complicated parts of the advice process, so brokers needed to offer all these channels and connect back to a compliant system of record.
Brokers taking matters into their own hands
Griffin understands why more brokers and firms have started to develop their own CRM systems, saying his own frustration as an adviser led to JammJar.
However, he said few could maintain the development needed to keep ahead of technology and changing customer needs.
“What we’ve seen is firms that have built their own solution might have done it four years ago, and then all they’re doing is they’re fixing bugs and making tweaks here and there. They’re not on a continual path of platform development that they need to be on if they’re going to keep pace, and so that that’s difficult,” he noted.
He recognised that artificial intelligence (AI) had made it easier to develop technology but said there was still a “substantial time investment” involved and many were not inclined to maintain this.
Regardless of their permanence or threat to competition, Griffin said firms building their own CRMs should be a “wake-up call” for mainstream providers and prompt them to reach out to remaining users and understand what can be improved.
He said brokers would not stick with providers that did not invest in development and allow users to make use of AI.
What will also become important when choosing CRMs is how they autonomously manage data and continually improve. Griffin said firms needed to consider whether a CRM would be sufficient in five years, as platform migrations were painful, so entering contracts with providers that evolved with innovation would be a “critical decision”.
“Brokers won’t be able to take advantage of AI if the data is not sorted, and that’s a legacy problem brought about by poor technology,” he said.
JammJar is working towards enabling brokers to exchange information with lenders and clients across various channels, then synthesise that data into the system using AI “instantly, accurately, and in a supervised way”.
When JammJar was first in development, the firm did not focus on using AI to automate tasks based on an existing dataset, but on the “big, ugly problem” of making sure the data available is sufficient for AI automation to be used in a trusted way.
The firm also believes future technology will work “harmoniously” with brokers and customers, inserting humans in the right part of the process where they are most effective.
