The Official MyLoanBiz Blog

The Fundamentals of Mortgage CRM: Part 2

In my first post on this topic I discussed the major components of a mortgage professional’s database:

1.    Contacts & Accounts
2.    Referral Sources
3.    Deals

In this post I would like to discuss how MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com handles managing these various pieces of information (click on image below to enlarge it).

Contacts & Accounts
Most of us are comfortable tracking contacts because of our experience with Microsoft Outlook. MyLoanBiz takes a unique approach to contacts because we allow you to track them in a way that is specific to the mortgage industry. The first thing you will notice on a contact record is the Group Membership field. This field allows you to tag the contact as part of one or more groups that you want to categorize it by. An example would be a contact that is both a Real Estate Agent and a Customer. Having the ability to organize your contacts in this manner will allow you to have a more sophisticated approach to your marketing activities.

Next you will notice that each Contact record gives you the ability to input contact information for two individuals. These are called the Main Contact and the Related Contact. This makes marketing to two people that live together much easier.   For example, you will now be able to print mailing labels that say Bill & Lisa Smith at 222 Green St. rather than having them get mailed to twice because they are on separate Contact records. We have also provided a field that allows you to define the relationship between the two people, such as Husband, Wife, Boyfriend, Girlfriend, etc.

In general you will find that you will have 2 types of contacts that you store in the system, Consumer contacts and Business Partner contacts. Consumer contacts are people that are existing customers or potential prospects and Business Partner contacts are individuals you work with on a professional level such as Attorneys, Real Estate Agents, Appraisers, etc.
We will talk about how to work with these different contact types in the system in greater detail in a future post.

An account is really just a company that a contact works for. If you are adding a Real Estate Agent into MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com you want to start by first creating an account for the company they are associated with. Then you will add them and all other agents that work for that company as a contact linked to that account.

Referral Sources
A Referral Source is a person or a thing that is referring contacts and deals to you. It is a separate record that you typically create off of a contact record. The idea is that you may have 500 contacts in your database but not all of them are actively referring business to you. When one does for the first time, you go to their Contact record and create a Referral Source record by clicking on the New Referral Source button (this is near the bottom of the Contact record). Keep in mind that a Referral Source will not always be a person but could be a thing such as a marketing piece you mail out or a development project. In this case you might still link the referral source record to the contact record of the main person you deal with in relation to the referral source.

Deals
Deals allow you to track all your transactions from a Lead to a Closed stage. They contain information about the first and (if one exists) the second mortgage. Once a deal is closed you then use the Deal record as a way to monitor future refinance opportunities. A Deal record can be linked back to the borrower's Contact record. This allows you to pull up the Contact record and see all the deals you have ever done with them. The Deal record will also be linked back to the Referral Source record that sent the deal your way. You can also link the contact records of all the parties related to a deal, such as Real Estate Agents and Attorneys.

Salesforce Spring '08: New Features

Over the last few days Salesforce has updated all accounts to the new Spring '08 release. There are a number of new features that have been added to the application. Some are relevant to MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com users and some that are not. I just wanted to take a moment to highlight those that are:

Dashboard Scheduling
You can now schedule When Dashboards are automatically refreshed and emailed. To turn this feature on go to the Dashboard tab and click the down arrow that is next to the Refresh button and select Schedule Refresh. Learn More

List View Builder
The interface for creating and modifying List Views has been improved. You can now easily change the order of columns. You do not need to do anything to activate this feature. Learn More

Drag-and-drop Calendaring & Other Calendar Enhancements
Users can quickly reschedule events by dragging them to a new time or day within the single-user day/week view. Users can also toggle between day, week, and event detail views as well as scroll horizontally to view additional dates. users can also send an email when assigning tasks. A new “Send Email Notification” checkbox allows users to quickly specify that a task assignee should receive an email for a new task assignment. To activate this feature go to Setup>App Setup>User Interface> Select Enable Drag-and-Drop Editing on Calendar Views. Learn More

Spell Check for Activities and Notes
Users can enjoy the benefits of spell-check functionality to make sure their comments are now spelled correctly. To activate this feature go to Setup>App Setup>Customize>Activities>Activity Settings>Select Enable Spell Checker on Tasks and Events. Learn More

Michael Haigh: Top Retail Loan Officer with CitiMortgage

I just wanted to take the opportunity to acknowledge and congratulate one of our users, Michael Haigh at CitiMortgage for an outstanding 2007. Michael has the honor of being ranked number one in the United States out of the more than 500 CitiMortgage loan consultants for 2007. In a conversation I had with Michael yesterday he noted that 2008 was already off to an incredible start.

Michael's story is similar to that of many Loan Officers I have spoken with that are having early success in this market (even before this past week's events). They all seem to have a strong focus on building long-term relationships with their customers and are looking for ways to leverage technology to accomplish this task. Michael has put a lot of emphasis on putting processes in place to become more consistent, timely and relevant in the way he and his team serve and in interact with their clients.

Michael talks a lot about doing what is right for the client. He puts it this way, "My number one priority is to ensure my clients receive the best real estate loan that matches their needs, but does not put them at risk. My team and I stay on top of every part of the process to insure our client's goals are achieved. Our job is surveying our client's results. If we do that well they will tell their relatives, friends and acquaintances. That is the best compliment we can receive. Many of our long time customers and new customers say they "were not expecting" how much we do to help them."

Michael also genuinely cares about the communities he and his team work with. They have designed and implemented special programs to serve non-profits such as, Habitat for Humanity, Mission Hospice, Samaritan House and The Boys and Girls Clubs. His generosity extends to other non-profits such as HIP Housing, HEART of San Mateo County and many others. "Giving back to the communities we call home" was the title for one recent donation project that provided thousands of dollars to charities.

I think Michael is a classic case that demonstrates that if you focus on the needs of your clients and the community you work in you have an opportunity to both help people and build the foundation of a strong mortgage practice.

To learn more about Michael visit www.michaelhaighteam.com

The Fundamentals of Mortgage CRM: Part 1

Understanding why capturing the data is important and what data must be collected.

Why do Fortune 500 companies spend tens of millions of dollars on information technology systems? They understand there is nothing more important than having accurate information about their customers and the transactions these customers represent. Think about what happens when a major lender starts servicing a loan you originated? They begin a never-ending marketing campaign to win the loyalty of your borrower so they can capture the borrower's next refinance or purchase loan.

In the past a broker or an individual LO did not have the resources to compete at this level. The cost of the technology, its complexity and the resources required to make it all work were out of reach for most of us. The goal of MyLoanBiz is to change all this.

You have the initial touch point with your clients, which means you have the relationship. If you can market to them with the same sophistication that the major lenders do then you will be in a position to retain your customers for life.

The heart of your business must be your database. It is your platform for:

• Managing leads
• Tracking loans in process
• Monitoring closed loans for refinance opportunities
• Marketing to current prospects and past customers
• Ranking & communicating with your referral partners

In order to accomplish all this, your database must contain accurate data that is well organized into these three major components:

1. Contacts & Accounts
2. Referral Sources
3. Deals

Once you accomplish this you can start the business of making money from you data.

One of our many goals for 2008 is to make it easier for our clients to start utilizing the technology we have developed. The quicker you can set it up and begin leveraging it the faster you will start reaping its rewards.  Over the next few months you will begin to see blog posts on how to utilize all the functionality we have developed as well as a new series of online training demos. We look forward to making 2008 a banner year for your origination business.

New Security Enhancements

Most of you should have recently received the email below outlining the new security enhancements that Salesforce.com is rolling out. These security measures are similar to those deployed by many leading banks to manage access to their online banking applications. For over a year now my bank has required me to go through a process of identifying who I am whenever I log in from a new location by sending a key to my email address and then having me enter it via their site. Although sometimes a frustrating process, I am happy to do it because of the sensitive nature of the information made available to me via their site. My feelings are pretty much the same about the changes Salesforce.com is making. Security is not always pleasant but necessary and appreciated when a threat occurs.

Dear Salesforce Administrator,

At salesforce.com, we're actively delivering new security enhancements to protect customers against known threats.

One such enhancement will be “Identity Confirmation;” which is a set of features to help reduce the risk of phishing by requiring users to confirm their identity when accessing Salesforce from a different computer and from an unrecognized location for the first time. Before such users can log in, they will have to complete additional steps to confirm their identity—the exact steps will depend on whether they are using a browser or logging on via an API client, such as Connect for Outlook, Connect Offline, Apex Data Loader.

Please be prepared to explain these steps to your users—they are outlined below and explained in detail in this webinar (https://www.salesforce.com/security/)

Our goal is to minimize the impact of these features on users by allowing established patterns of usage to continue unchallenged. You will be able to designate a list of trusted IP ranges for your organization in Salesforce. Users who access Salesforce from IP addresses included in this list will not be affected by these changes. *

To facilitate the process for administrators, salesforce.com will pre-populate a list of trusted IP ranges for your company once, based on an analysis of the last four months of your organization's login data.

Please check the schedule (https://trust.salesforce.com/security.html#identity) to find out when Identity Confirmation will be activated for your company. Next, review the list of pre-populated trusted IP ranges for accuracy and completeness as soon as possible. It will be your responsibility to update the list of trusted IP ranges by adding new ranges as needed. To manage the list, go to Setup->Administration Setup->Security Controls -> Network access.

New login procedure for first log in from an untrusted network:

When users try to log in from a new browser and a new IP address, login will fail and an error message appears. Users can take the following steps to activate their computers:

   1. In response to the error message, click the Send Activation Link button to trigger an email message. Remind users that salesforce.com will never ask them for their login information via email.
   2. Open the email message that contains the activation link
   3. Copy the link and paste it into the browser within 24 hours. A message confirms that the computer has been activated.
   4. Once activation is complete, users can log in to Salesforce as usual. They will not be required to activate that location or browser again.

To access Salesforce from an untrusted network using a desktop application, users will be required to replace their current password with a combination of their password and a security token by taking the following steps:

   1. Log in to Salesforce via the browser to reset request their security token.
   2. Go to Setup->My Personal Information->Reset Security Token.
   3. Click the Reset Security Token button to trigger an email that will contain their security token.
   4. Select and copy the token from the email and use it to log in.
   5. In the application, replace their password with combination of the password and the security token. For example, if the password is “MyPassword” and the security token is “XXXXXX”, they would enter “MyPasswordXXXXXX” into the password field.

Summary: Next Steps

   1. Important! View the Webinar (https://www.salesforce.com/security/) to be prepared to answer your users' questions. You can also refer users to the Webinar.
   2. Check the schedule (https://trust.salesforce.com/security.html#identity) to find out when Identity Confirmation will be implemented for your company and notify your users.
   3. Check the pre-populated list of trusted IP addresses for completeness and accuracy.
   4. Maintain this list to ensure a smooth login experience for your users. To manage the list, go to Setup->Administration Setup->Security Controls ->Network Access.

*Notes:

    * The Identity Confirmation features are backwardly compatible with existing software—there should be no need to upgrade or patch software to use the security token.
    * Users with profiles with login IP range restrictions will be exempt from having to take additional steps.
    * These features will not be enabled for organizations that implemented single sign-on using delegated authentication.

Thank you for your help in keeping your company and your users safe from phishing attacks. If you have additional questions, please contact salesforce.com support.

Sincerely,

Parker Harris
EVP Technology
Salesforce.com

New Approach to Lookups?

It appears that a new approach to lookups maybe on the horizon. In a recent post on the Successforce Blog Emily Liggett from the Salesforce.com User Experience team talks about some ideas that are being tested in an attempt to improve this functionality. I have always thought the current lookup process of clicking on the magnifying glass icon to launch a new window to search for a record simply took too long. It was one of those things that you just accept when using a web application because of all the other inherent benefits an online system has to offer.

Well, this trade-off may no longer be one we have to settle for. It looks like the preferred future approach may be having an auto-complete box. Imagine being able to just start typing the name of a record you are looking for and a drop down appears that starts displaying possible matches and narrowing them down as you type. Hopefully this is a feature that we will see in spring or summer of 2008. If you have a Firefox 2.0+ browser you can take a test drive of this prototype by clicking here. It will unfortunately not work with Microsoft Internet Explorer.

MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com Winter '08 Release is Here!

It has been a long time coming but it is finally here and we believe it was well worth the wait. This is our biggest release ever and fundamentally changes the way our users will utilize our application. Here is a quick snippet of some of the new features we have added (many of which we have highlighted on this blog over the last few weeks):

  Contact Object Features

• Contact List View Button - Change Owner
• Contact List View Button - Mass Update
• Contact List View Button - Mass Delete
• New Referral Source button

Deal Object Features

• Deal Detail Page Button - Convert
• Deal Detail Page Button - Close Out
• Deal Detail Page Button - Email Borrower
• Deal List View Button - Mass Email
• Deal List View Button - Mass Delete
• Deal List View Button - Change Status
• Deal List View Button - Change Product

This update is available to all current MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com customers who are on a managed package release of our application. In order to receive this upgrade you need to install the MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com Winter '07 managed package on your account. This is a relatively simple process and all you have to do is email us at support@myloanbiz.com to request your upgrade and we will email you back a link to the package install site along with the release notes.

Winter '08 Release - Deal Close Out

I always thought of a mortgage transaction (a Deal) as having 3 to 4 stages in its life-cycle:

• Lead
• Pre-Approval (this stage is only relevant on purchases)
• Committed
• Closed

From a database management perspective it is crucial that you are accurately recording information during a Deal's transition from a Committed to a Closed stage. There are a number of things in play during this transition:

• What is the correct Deal status to set on the Deal record? Is it Closed:Won or Closed: Lost? What was the reason if it was a loss?
• What is the correct Future Refi status? Is this something you want to track on future refi reports? So should you mark it Monitoring? Do you not want it on future refi reports? So should you put it in an Inactive status?
• What changes should be made to the Group Membership type of the Borrower and Co-Borrower? If they were marked as Prospects they should now be changed to Customers if the deal was Closed: Won. 
• What is the new Mailing Address going to be for the Borrower and Co-Borrower? You will need to correctly update their Contact records. Will you use the Present Address or the Property Address from the Deal record?
• Do you want to set a task for yourself as a reminder to send a Stay-in-Touch email in 30 days to the Borrower and Co-Borrower? This might be a good idea on owner occupied purchase deals because more than likely some of their contact information will change after the move. 

Alright, I think you get the point, there is a lot going on with a record when you switch it to a Closed stage. So we thought we would try and automate this process as much as possible while still allowing you to make specific decisions on each setting.

In the MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com Winter '08 release for customers on a managed package we have added a Close Out button to the deal record. This will take you to a single page where you will be able to make all the necessary changes to a Deal and it’s correlating Borrower and Co-Borrower Contact records from a single screen. We think this new feature will help you save a lot of time and keep your database in great shape. I know my transaction coordinator will be happy to have this feature because doing this manually took a lot of clicking and it was easy to forget to update things (yes, I still right loans).

When will Winter '08 for MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com get here? The wait is almost over; I have one batch of features left to report to you and I will post on them shortly. The release is actually completed and we are doing final testing and writing the release update notes. It will be generally available for all MyLoanBiz users that are on a managed package release next Monday, November 5th 2007.

Winter '08 Release - Mass Delete Feature

Alright, this is not the most exciting of features but it is a simple little thing that I often wished I was able to do in Salesforce. Mass Delete from a list view on both the Contact and Deal tabs will be part of our up coming Winter '08 release.

This one is simple to explain. When you are on any list view on the Contact or Deal tab you can simply click the check box next to any of the records in the view. Then you simply hit the Mass Delete button at the top of the list view and you get an alert box asking if this is really what you want to do. Hit yes and the list view reloads minus those records. This is especially handy when you have imported a number of records and you want to filter through the list and delete out duplicates.

A few of you might be saying that there already is Mass Delete for Contacts. So why did we create our own? Well, it is not available directly from a list view and it is not all that straight forward if you are new to Salesforce. I think you will find this Delete button to be a bit more intuitive and something that you use more often. The other delete function is more for administrators and advanced users.

We have one last feature that we are wrapping up that I will post about shortly and then we are onto writing the release notes and then getting this version launched. I promise we will work to get this release out ASAP.

Winter '08 Release - Mass Email Deal Feature

The standard Mass Email feature that works with Contacts in Salesforce is very powerful. I often use it to send out an email to a specific subset of people in my database. For example, I send a weekly newsletter to all my contacts with a Group Membership setting of Real Estate Agent. This is an easy way to stay in front of a large group of people. Marketing is all about being constantly top-of-mind with your target audience. As an originator you want to always be focused on establishing your brand and the Mass Email feature makes this easy.

I often wished I could send a mass email to a set of contacts based on criteria from a Deal record rather than being limited to filtering by fields on the Contact record. For example, I wanted to be able to identify all the deals that were in a Pre-Approval stage and had no activity in 14 days and send them a mass email to just touch base. I also wished I could send an email in mass to all contacts with a deal that was an ARM rather than have to do send them one by one.

I am excited to announce that we are in the final stages of testing our up-coming Mass Email Deal feature. This new functionality will add a Mass Email button to all Deal list views. Here is how it will work:

1. You will simply select an existing list view on the main Deal tab or create a new one specific to you filter criteria.
2. You will then be able to select all deals that are in the view or check them off individually.
3. Next you will click the Mass Email button and be able to then browse through your email template folders and select an email template (we tried to mimic Salesforce.com's standard Mass Email flow in order to minimize your learning curve).
4. After selecting a template you will be able to send your email to all the contacts that are linked to your selected deals as the Primary Borrower.
5. At the end a report will be generated detailing all deals that failed to have an email sent and why. The two reasons this might happen are due to a Contact record not being linked to the deal as a Primary Borrower or because the linked contact record did not have an email address.

A key design element is that we are not using the email address that is stored on a Deal record because it has an increased probability of being out-of-date. Instead we are using the email address from the Contact record of the linked Primary Borrower because this should be more current (especially if you are regularly using the Stay-in-Touch feature on the main Contacts tab).

We have a few additional features we are wrapping up and are targeting to have this new release available to all customers running a managed package version MyLoanBiz for Salesforce.com in the first week of November. This will coincide with the release of Salesforce.com's own Winter '08 update.