Mortgage Choice embarks on CRM consolidation

Residential mortgage broker, Mortgage Choice, is in the middle of a Microsoft Dynamics customer relationship management (CRM) rollout which will replace three separate CRM systems.

The company does business through approximately 450 franchisees around Australia. Its head office in Sydney provides systems and technology to help franchisees.

Mortgage Choice CIO Neill Rose-Innes said that having one CRM system across its mortgage broking, financial planning and insurance divisions will make it easier for franchisees to access information about customers.

“Regardless of which vertical a customer engages us through, the customer is represented once in the organisation but can have multiple relations,” he said.

For example, if a customer calls up their broker, the broker can use the CRM system to see what transactions the customer has made with different divisions of the Mortgage Choice business.

In addition, staff could use this information to email targeted offers to customers about products and services they are interested in.

“Dynamics can be configured to our use with minimal customisation which delivers ongoing value for Mortgage Choice,” he said.

So far, the company has deployed Dynamics to its Melbourne-based subsidiary, Help Me Choose. The subsidiary helps customers to compare different mortgages, health insurance and life insurance policies.

The implementation was completed in December 2014. Microsoft’s cloud-based software suite Office 365 was rolled out at the same time.

“From day one, staff were able to use the [CRM] system and conduct the sales that needed to be done. From a commercial perspective, that’s a really important element of the change,” said Rose-Innes.

“We are now in the process of deploying Dynamics to our Mortgage Choice network starting in March 2015,” he added.

In the future, Rose-Innes would like to develop a customer portal so that customers have some self-service options and can engage with the company.

In August 2013, he told CIO Australia that the pace of customer services will only increase, along with changes to customer behaviour and interactions.

“We need to leap from ‘here to next week’, not to tomorrow. That’s the way we can fulfill our ‘hearts and minds’ customer focus strategy.”

At the time, he said that the consumerisation of technology is “a good thing” – something corporates need to deal with. Most users don’t want system change, he said, but when it offers opportunities then you need to be there, ready and able.

Follow Hamish Barwick on Twitter: @HamishBarwick

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