How to Select the Right Digital Mortgage Software for Your Team
Chelsea Mize
To find the right digital mortgage solution, you need to know why you need digital mortgage technology at all. You definitely know you need it, but do you understand why? Like, really understand why?
Finding the right digital mortgage starts with knowing your goals and how digital mortgage software will help you achieve them. This means going beyond, “I need a digital mortgage software to help my team be more efficient.” Your “why” should be specific and detailed look at the pain points in your organization that digital mortgage could improve upon.
“If you know what you want, ideally separated into a must-have list and a nice-to-have list, it will be much easier to figure out if any given solution fits your business—and to resist ‘shiny’ things.” — Steven A Lowe, CEO of software consulting + development firm, Innovator LLC
Before going any further, you need to take the time to thoroughly understand your business goals and how a digital mortgage solution can help you meet those goals.
To help get the goal-setting process moving, here are a few crucial steps to understanding your software needs:
- Gather key stakeholders. Set up a meeting with all stakeholders that will need to be involved in the implementation or use of the software. This will likely include executives, finance, IT, marketing, and loan officers. Researchers at Bain found that after the 7th person in a decision-making group, each extra member reduces decision effectiveness by 10%. The ideal decision-making team size? 6 people.
- Understand your buying group. During this meeting, you will want to figure out the dynamics of the buying group. Who will the final decision maker(s) be as you go through this process? How will the buying group keep the process moving and avoid analysis paralysis?
- Understand your “why”. Finally, dive in deep to the meat of the discussion. Start with why: why do we need digital mortgage software? What would a successful implementation look like? Jot down the main reasons that you need digital mortgage software. Be sure that each reason is tied to a larger business goal that can be measured and tracked over time.
Key considerations for digital mortgage shopping:
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Integrations:
- What integrations does the software have to have?
- What integrations would be nice to have, but aren’t necessarily deal-breakers?
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Scale:
- Are you looking for a software that will grow with you as the business expands? Or will your needs remain consistent over time?
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Process:
- What is the lending experience like from the borrower’s point-of-view? From the loan officer’s point-of-view?
- Next, seriously consider the flaws in your process. What flaws exist in the current process? Are you prepared to modify the process to improve it? Or are you simply looking for digital mortgage software to act as a bandage to attempt to fix a broken process?
- Identify ways to improve the process prior to software implementation. Focus on making those improvements as you carry on through the software shopping process.
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Plan for adoption:
- While a good digital mortgage provider will help guide you through every step of implementation, it’s still important to consider how you will drive employee adoption internally.
- Change is never easy, but it’s especially tricky when you are asking people to change how they do things every day. How will you motivate employees to incorporate the new software into their routines? Will it be a mandatory process change? Will you provide incentives for early adopters?
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Security
- What type of encryption does the vendor use and at what parts of the process? What physical security standards does the vendor ensure? What are the security standards of the partners used by the platform? How is information and data stored and where? What data is stored to ensure track records in case an incident happens? Who owns the data processed by the vendor?
Questions to Ask Yourself
- What are your digital mortgage needs based on your business goals?
- Who needs to be involved in the buying process?
- What does a successful product deployment look like for your organization?
- Certain metric that dictates a justified purchase? Loans closed x% faster? Or
- How will you measure ROI?
- What is your budget?
- What is your timeline?
For more on how to understand your mortgage technology needs and priorities, check out our “Digital Mortgage Buyer’s Guide.”
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