Customer Story
Country Bank leverages Maxwell to empower borrower & LO success in a tough market
87%
Average loan application submission rate since January 2022
+5%
Increase in submission rate since 2021 due to continued adoption of Maxwell Point of Sale features
Country Bank strives to streamline the mortgage process for its customers, creating a people-first experience that builds relationships in the communities it serves. To achieve this mission, the team relies on efficiency-driving technology. By leveraging Maxwell Point of Sale, Country Bank is able to offer a quick, intuitive mortgage process where lending team members are empowered to go beyond administrative tasks and spend more time catering to borrowers and growing the business.
How Maxwell helped Country Bank
Goal
Modernize the borrower experience with features that speed up and simplify each step of the lending process
Goal
Arm LOs with powerful tools that drive productivity and success
Goal
Build a connected system with robust integrations customized to Country Bank’s unique workflow
Solution
Country Bank uses Maxwell Point of Sale to enhance the mortgage experience for its team members and borrowers alike. By creating an integrated workflow with thoughtful automations, Country Bank is able to dramatically speed up the process while delivering the convenient functionality modern consumers expect.
Justin Calheno
AVP Retail Lending, Country Bank
“We’ve been able to become more efficient, and more efficiency allows the sales team to spend more time selling. It’s made a difference in how we can service our customers and streamlines our processes.”
—Justin Calheno, AVP Retail Lending, Country Bank
With history going back to 1850, Country Bank is a mainstay in the Massachusetts community. Over those years, it’s created a reputation for valuing its customers and building long-lasting relationships with personal touchpoints that drive long-term loyalty. This customer-centric focus drove Country Bank to seek a technology-led approach that took the frustration and lengthy timeline out of the mortgage process. Ultimately, the lending team chose to build out a connected system around Maxwell’s point-of-sale technology, which integrated with Country Bank’s LOS of choice.
“Since everything is integrated, it’s so much more of a seamless process,” explains Justin Calheno, who manages Country Bank’s residential lending team. “We’re able to offer electronic signatures on packages, and borrowers can provide documents in a multitude of ways. Now everything’s much more seamless from both the employee standpoint and the customer standpoint.”
Integrations & automations for a seamless lending experience
Before leveraging Maxwell Point of Sale’s tech-powered features, the Country Bank team was relying on manual processes that elongated their timelines and introduced tedious tasks for employees and borrowers alike. Documents, for instance, would need to be wet signed, then physically dropped off at a branch or scanned and emailed to a loan officer. With the introduction of eSign technology, that reality—along with the turnaround time involved—has drastically changed.
“There are times where I see completed packages back within 10 minutes,” comments Justin. “It used to be 10 to 12 days, and you were still chasing wet signatures on documents.”
Similarly, third-party integrations and streamlining communication tools keep loans moving through the pipeline. Country Bank leverages Maxwell Point of Sale’s integration with payment platform Stripe, for example, to create fast, secure transfers. Meanwhile, automatic notifications and reminders keep LOs, real estate agents, and borrowers on task and informed. And with all file updates synced in both Maxwell and the LOS, loan statuses are easy and efficient to track.
“It’s ‘set it and forget it’,” says Justin. “Of course, we’re still proactive in educating and communicating with our borrowers, but these integrations ensure the pipeline stays moving and nothing falls through the cracks.”
“How quickly can you close?”
The efficient timeline created by Maxwell Point of Sale technology is especially vital in today’s challenging housing market. To stand a chance at landing a home, borrowers need every competitive edge they can get. When reflecting on how the borrowing landscape has changed, Justin says that borrowers used to ask about loan products, down payments, rates, and closing costs first, whereas in the past couple years, those questions have shifted to a single ask: “How quickly can you close?”
By reducing the time-to-close by over 13 days, Maxwell Point of Sale provides a powerful advantage that can differentiate borrowers in multi-offer situations. In turn, Country Bank can confidently assure its customers that it will position them as competitively as possible to successfully land a home.
“Maxwell Point of Sale helps us close loans more efficiently, which not only enhances the lending experience for our borrowers, but also helps bolster their offers against stiff competition in the current market,” comments Denise Walker, Country Bank’s SVP and Director of Retail Lending.
A powerful tool for high-performing LOs
Along with supporting Country Bank’s customers, Maxwell Point of Sale also empowers its team of LOs to increase efficiency and focus on growing the business. Because much of the busy work is automated and taken off the LO’s plate, they gain the time and focus to educate their borrowers and build relationships that lead to more loans. Justin noticed that one particular LO who was quick to adopt the technology at hand, for instance, began to move her files through the pipeline at a rapid pace.
By leveraging Maxwell’s automation features, she was able to produce 46% more loans than the team average in the first 6 months of 2022.
“She always has a robust pipeline, and those files are efficient and move quickly,” comments Justin.
The functionalities Country Bank’s team has access to and the improved metrics those functionalities drive give the organization an advantage when it comes to recruiting and retaining talent. In today’s competitive landscape, LOs inevitably ask about available tools during the interview process. Being able to showcase Maxwell Point of Sale and its integrations has helped Justin and his team stand toe-to-toe with the most innovative mortgage lenders.
According to Justin: “If we need to recruit for a position, we have the ability to stand behind our process and the technology that we offer the LOs. Having this technology can help make a difference in a candidate’s decision to join Country Bank or the competition.”
Partnership as a differentiator
A major reason Country Bank chose—and remains a customer of—Maxwell is because of the regular communications and touchpoints facilitated by Maxwell’s leadership, support representatives, and customer success team. Specifically, Maxwell support has been fast to answer any questions, and Country Bank’s dedicated customer success manager ensures the team stays up-to-date on new features and updates to the platform.
“To drive success for Country Bank, a point-of-sale solution of course needs to offer leading technology,” comments Denise. “What we’ve found to be rare—yet equally important—when it comes to providers is a true partnership approach. Maxwell fulfills that role by proactively tackling any issues that may arise and empowering our team to use its technology to the fullest extent.”
Click here to learn how Maxwell Point of Sale can integrate with your unique workflow to create game-changing efficiency, or request a demo today.
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