A survey on the Cherry forum revealed that the longest time a broker waited to speak to a lender was 153 minutes.
According to the poll, brokers think they should only have to wait five and a half minutes to reach a lender by phone.
Some lenders were praised for having quick connect times, including Coventry Building Society, Accord Mortgages, Skipton Building Society and Aviva.
Posts related to the survey included one broker saying: “Long wait times having ‘become the norm’ is just not acceptable. People just want the old days of proper values and good service back.”
Another said they preferred “actual people” over live chat, while one broker said: “Business development managers need real time access to client cases to actually be useful.”
Added pressure to brokers
Donna Hopton, director at Cherry, said: “Brokers are clearly frustrated about the time they spend hanging on the phone to speak to lenders.”
Hopton said the forum gave brokers a “secure environment” to discuss their frustrations and said the fact that the website was gaining record traffic showed that its service was needed.
She added: “Brokers being able to share their thoughts on Cherry, means the service provides a vital support network, especially during challenging periods such as this.”
Sharon Boyle heads the property sector at outsourced communications provider Moneypenny, which works with estate agents, commercial agents, mortgage lenders and brokers across the UK.
She said: “The impact of poor lender response times is far reaching – it’s wasting brokers’ time, adding pressure to an already busy market, and causing delays to the house-buying process.
“The frustrations shared on the cherry forum should be a timely warning for lenders as they show just how damaging poor customer care is to business. Brokers are under tremendous amounts of pressure due to lending criteria changing on daily basis, so lenders need the right resource to keep up with call volumes and deliver professional and empathetic support.
“There’s a real opportunity for lenders to make greater use of people and technology and harness tools such as live chat, chat bots and first line call resolution services to help triage enquiries and give brokers the support they so desperately need.”
