How to keep your client for life

In the fourth excerpt from his book, author David Ham discusses the importance of an annual loan review

How to keep your client for life

Below is an excerpt from Chapter 35 of Mortgage Broking: Lead Generation and Sales Mastery by David Ham. You can get the whole book for FREE here.

When you are organising your client’s loan, you should be letting them know that your service doesn’t end when this loan settles.

Instead explain that as part of your ongoing customer care you work to ensure that their loan setup always remains appropriate to their changing circumstances and at the lowest cost you can provide to them. Of course, if they have any pressing loan needs they should contact you, otherwise they can wait for your annual loan review to keep things on track.

Your goal is to let them know that you are going to ‘take over their loans’ and it is now your responsibility to worry about them so they don’t have to.

Always assume your clients are lazy and impatient and you can’t go too far wrong. Because you have already done an initial loan for them, you can stress that future loans will be even easier because you now have all their details and just need to update things should there be any future applications. You aren’t going to be pressing them to refinance for the sake of it, just checking that everything is as it should be compared to the current home loan market.

Prior to the loan review, you should send an email or preferably a mailed letter. This is to let them know to expect your call, what it is about, the day you plan to call them and be ready with any information they should have at hand. In my opinion a mailed letter is better because it comes across as more official and professional. Better still is to include a book with the letter – by doing so gives you expertise by association. It will ensure your letter is read and will warm up the phone call by creating a bit of reciprocity and give you something else to talk about.

You should then call the client at the relevant time. The point of this isn’t to try and refinance them to another loan, it’s to stay in touch so they know you are always their primary contact for their lending. Maybe your client will need a new loan or change within their current lender, maybe not.

Irrespective of this there are a number of other benefits this phone call will provide to you, including:

  • Allowing you to update your CRM with your clients’ latest details and learn their future plans.
  • Ensuring they are in the right category of your marketing or if that needs to be changed.
  • Preparing you for your next conversation with them so you stay relevant.
  • Identifying future lending options or areas you can provide information to them about moving them towards their next loan.
  • Reminding them about yourself and your services and ensuring communication lines are open.
  • Reminding them to refer their friends to you if anyone they know wants a loan.
  • Reassuring them that they have the right loan and shouldn’t be shopping around elsewhere.
  • Building a relationship with them and showing you care about them.
  • Finding opportunities to refer them to other businesses they may have need of that you can recommend.
  • Reinforcing that speaking to you is the appropriate course when considering doing anything with their loan – not their bank.

Even if you don’t get a new loan this way, you are at the very least actively protecting your trail. Your client is much less likely to respond to a new Broker who tries to convince them they have a better loan if they know you are doing that for them.

Or put another way, if you aren’t proactively looking after your clients future borrowing someone else eventually will.