Retain uses customer data to track and automatically recontact existing customers who are due to roll off their current mortgage deal.
Customers receive an email which links them to a broker-branded web app, which is tailored to each individual client where they can learn more about their mortgage and are reminded of the value of their broker’s advice.
TMA is the first to confirm its software partnership with two other distributor firms already using the software and another in talks with the firm.
Rameez Zafar, CEO at Eligible, said the educational content is designed to give customers more insight and understanding of their mortgage and remortgaging in general.
“We guide the customer back to their adviser armed with a higher degree of confidence in their own understanding of mortgages and a better understanding of the value of the advice their broker can provide,” he added.
Data is drawn from several sources including the customer, sourcing systems and Automated Valuation Models and Zafar said the company is exploring machine learning which harnesses demographic data and tracks customer reaction and interaction more clearly.
Watch a demonstration video here.
Digital partnerships
TMA has also signed deals with digital conveyancing tool When You Move, critical illness knowledge platform CIExpert, and protection platform UnderwriteMe.
David Copland, director of mortgages at TMA, (pictured) said: “We are always looking at ways to enhance our members’ businesses and customer retention is a key aspect of this. With up to 30 per cent of homeowners in the UK deciding not to remortgage with the same broker, there is a clear gap in the market.”
He added: “By equipping our advisers with the right tools to tackle this, we hope to boost their product transfer and remortgage figures and help them regain time previously spent on administrative tasks, so they can focus on what really matters – providing tailored and holistic advice to their clients.”
The Mortgages Market Study paper out in March this year put execution-only mortgages firmly back on the table as a regulator-backed, mortgage distribution channel.
No-one wants next PPI
Zafar said Eligible has always believed lenders should also promote advice to their customers, particularly as customers move to longer-term products.
“No-one wants the next the PPI [scandal] to be in mortgages and lenders in particular do not want to expose themselves to excessive credit risk,” he said.
“Having a significant proportion of your book on an execution-only basis, exposes lenders to growing numbers of unadvised customers who may not understand the implications of the products they are selecting.
“In context, the 0.2 per cent or 0.3 per cent paid to advisors for a product transfer may be much lower than the reputational risk of the wrong outcome for unadvised customers,” he added.
For some lenders, intermediaries are their only source of business, and for others it’s their largest source of business said Zafar.
“While they may be pushing rate switches, the fact that most are now offering these via brokers shows that they want to leave the advice avenue open to the customer,” he added.
