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Special Reports
Lead Generation
RDI Says Call Center, Data Are Keys to High Quality Leads
By Amilda Dymi
CINCINNATI-Generating the perfect fit mortgage lead at RDI Marketing Services
Inc. involves combining the right data provider with well-trained telemarketing agents and in-house market research
analysis expertise in an one-stop shop automated operation.
"To provide the mortgage industry with a high-quality lead, you need to have
a very efficient call operation and highly selective data," says RDI vice president of client services, Bronson
Trebbi. He finds the mission of mortgage lead providers to produce flexible offerings is viable for any market
environment, being it refinancing or debt consolidation and home equity products for brokers/lenders who compete
more and more through automation and efficiency.
RDI has taken the one-stop shop Internet approach offering specialized mailings
and outbound telemarketing all on the same online platform, where users can post leads to the customer, generate
a mailing, receive calls and hits off of other websites. Extensive mortgage data is profiled through various software
that helps process the information in as many different ways as requested by mortgage professionals.
"I think we are at the cutting edge in terms of presenting a full-tech contact
center and one-stop shop that can generate leads via the Internet," says Mr. Trebbi.
A 25-year-old direct marketing full-service research company, RDI provides business-to-business
and custom research, as well as customer satisfaction analysis through its Market Research group and the Teleservices
division, consisting of a total of 275 stations nationally, serving various financial markets including the mortgage
industry. Because the company was founded "as a market research analysis shop," Mr. Trebbi says, "it
lends us a lot of higher expertise in profiling and not only the success rate of the offers, but who to offer them
to."
RDI serves various size lenders through multiple solutions that include customer
retention programs, broker loyalty programs for wholesale lenders, and soon will offer end-to-end products for
small brokers, prospect database management, response tracking and analysis, bundled package solutions deliverable
after the marketing campaign.
Mortgage leads are generated based on information from all 50 states received
through a specialized mortgage data supplier. RDI has selected "Data Plus" which combines non-regulator,
or public data source information, with information from the country's major credit bureaus. Based on their credit
history criteria, "Data Plus" targets individuals who need a loan and also qualify for a refinancing
loan or debt consolidation mortgage. It identifies homeowners directly through public records as well as through
credit reports inquiring for so-called red flags. Leads are eliminated depending on the required information filtering
criteria.
Red flags may consist of debt level, type of debt, second-home mortgages, recent
bankruptcies, foreclosures in the last several years, or other parameters that are built around each customers'
campaign, including a specific credit score customer lenders/brokers are interested in targeting.
Interest rates are not expected to change for another year or two, but executives
think lenders are also looking for better solutions in the purchase money and home equity markets.
"We just find people who are in that zone right now," the executive
noted. Because data changes fast, the strength of "Data Plus" is in its extensive multisource database
(it also provides information retrieved from a large number of small regional compilers), in addition to the data
from credit reporting companies that allows for a highly accurate customer profile. Data is based on findings from
about 70.5 million homeowners who are credit-screened through a basic criterion, qualifying about 58 million uniquely
credit-scored homeowners.
As to its calling centers, RDI executives believe success starts with profiling
the call center agent and selecting a pool of agents who understand home finance. Agents are asked to role-play
as customers who are sorting through home financing options. Plus, RDI applies quality monitoring to ensure that
call center agents adhere to the script and avoid mistakes.
"Our role is not to start negotiating rates, it is to provide a lead to the
client, to sell them on an opportunity to lower their monthly payment whether it is their mortgage payments or
just adjusting debt," Mr. Trebbi explains. "Through our quality monitoring, digital recording devices
and auditing, we ensure that it doesn't happen."
RDI's quality assurance process features what Mr. Trebbi calls "the layers
of quality." First, perspective customers referred by the calling agents are transferred to RDI's quality
assurance department where all the data is re-verified.
The process helps identify mortgage customers as much as it helps to score and
evaluate calling agents based on their quality, not on their productivity. Phone calls are audited in real time
to allow immediate intervention. Lastly, before sending it to the client, the staff edits the end-product lead
for accuracy and presentation.
"So when you take all those steps towards quality," says Mr. Trebbi.
"You have a successful, long-term, viable mortgage lead."
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