Proven Leading Practices for Consumer Finance Operations
Consumer Finance Best Practices Guide
Learn MoreUse a Standardized Complaint Form to Log Borrower Issues and Improve Customer Satisfaction
Best Practice (Good)
Use a standardized complaint form to log borrower issues. Categorize the most common complaints into 5-7 general issues (e.g., time to reach loan decision, interest rates, access to capital, service quality, etc.). Document the issue, time frames and the next step that should be taken in order to resolve the issue. Keep records of all formal complaints that are submitted in order to analyze and identify weaknesses in the consumer loan origination process and the most common instances of borrower dissatisfaction. Once complaint analysis is performed and root causes are identified, develop training methods for consumer lending employees to address the problem areas and increase borrower satisfaction.
Typical Practice (Bad)
Provide personalized customer service to all borrowers who submit complaints. Encourage dissatisfied customers to call customer service so that customer service representatives can provide friendly service and suit the unique needs of each individual borrower. Rely on customer service training to be sufficient enough to adequately resolve all borrower complaints.
Benefits:
Standardized complaint forms enable the company to perform root cause analysis and identify key weaknesses and opportunities for improvement within the consumer loan process. This helps the company to prevent future complaints from occurring, instead of providing ad hoc resolutions to borrower issues. In addition, standardized forms encourage specific and efficient calls to action from employees, which minimize the amount of time each employee must spend on customer complaints. Targeting the root cause of borrower complaints will lead to smoother business operations and increased borrower satisfaction.
Ensure That All Necessary Documents are Included in Submitted Loan Packages to Reduce Loan Processing Cycle Times
Best Practice (Good)
Loan officers and processors should work with the borrower to fill out detailed standard checklists to ensure that all necessary documents in the loan package are included and completed before sending loan packages to the underwriter. Have the borrower fill in any missing information or send in the missing documents. Do not transmit any files that do not have a completed checklist.
Typical Practice (Bad)
Loan officers pass off loan packages to processors once they are received. If there is any missing information for loan document packages, attempt to fill in missing information if possible. If the missing information cannot be filled in by the loan officer or processor, then contact the borrower to retrieve the missing information.
Benefits:
Ensuring that all documents are included and completed in the initial loan package reduces loan processing cycle times. Attempting to fill in missing information in loan packages or correcting errors in loan packages is time-consuming and wastes time that could be spent on processing loans that have complete and accurate loan packages. Having the borrower fill in the missing information allows the processors to move on to other loans that can be pushed through more quickly. Furthermore, loan officers may not accurately fill in the missing information, so allowing the borrower to submit this information improves the accuracy of the loan package.