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Special Reports
Lead Generation
TrueClose Bakes CRM Functionality into the LOS
By Anthony Garritano
Lead generation is critical in a down market, which is why broker loan origination
software TrueClose includes customer relationship management tools directly within the LOS. "The most important
part of a mortgage company's work is prospecting," said Michael Blair, president and CEO at TrueClose here.
"The loan officer in particular is spending 80% of their time prospecting. "In order to make a tool to
help them, it only makes sense to have CRM built into the LOS," he said. "At the beginning of the process,
CRM is a must have."
How does this compare to the competition? "What you get with Calyx is something
that can build the pre-disclosure forms, but we wanted to start from the beginning and get into CRM," answered
Mr. Blair. "When you talk about CRM, you talk about letters, mailings and follow-ups, but there isn't a tool
like that in Calyx. "We want to give the broker that in addition to a management tool to help them oversee
the process as well," he said. "When I first got into the mortgage industry there weren't any tools to
help you manage your leads. For example, these people are calling 20 people a day, but how do you manage that?
How do you keep up? Some people write it on a note and have a catalog, but with the technology today it's important
that they have one solution to manage everything in one place."
Nonetheless, no one tool can do it all well. "It becomes a process of developing
a good tool," Mr. Blair said. "We have strong resources on the mortgage side that have subject matter
expertise. We need to meet the needs of our clients as well. The users decide the look, feel and functionality.
"It works in such a way that we get the requirements back, build the prototype and beta test," he said.
"CRM is very important. On a smaller scale you have CRM tools out there, but to be quite honest the target
audience that we're going after are not using more then 10% to 20% of the functionality of those standalone products.
"Also, they're not mortgage specific," said Mr. Blair. "For example, you have three days to send
a disclosure, so why not have a flag that pops up to tell you that they're due? You're just not going to get that
from a standalone CRM."
Software management issues are another reason to incorporate CRM directly into
the LOS, according to Mr. Blair. "You also have to manage more then one solution, which brings its own problems.
"As time goes on, when you have a company that continues to control the market, you'll see people looking
to take advantage of the Web," he said. "Once this catches on, people will be jumping on, which is why
that has been our focus from the start."
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