Should Mortgage Brokers Consider Realtors Their CUSTOMERS?

Sometimes you get that jaw dropper comment on one of your posts. You know, the comment that is raw. The one that speaks volumes about our entire industry.

It is something laced with real emotion that spews out like hot lava from a smoldering volcano (that you assumed was dormant).

It is the kind of comment that I live for, because the truth is most often hidden in business communications. Usually we try to stay out of controversial territory.

But not always. The comment:

And do you not consider Realtors your customers, as well? It sure doesn't seem like mortgage brokers look at Realtors in this light.

I wonder if we in the mortgage industry have "trained" Realtors to think of us as their "customers"? After all, didn't we entice Realtors to do business with us by bringing donuts to sales meetings? By laying rate sheets on their desk? By showing up in their office with a bright shiny badge with the hope that we can "sell" them on the idea of doing business with you?

Don't Realtors hide when they see a mortgage broker coming? Sure sounds lika a classic salesman/customer realtionship to me.

My jaw dropped because I realized that if a Realtor believed that they are a customer of the mortgage broker, then this speaks volumes about the difficulty in establishing a rapport that will carry a real estate transaction smoothly to its close.

Why? Because that means we are starting on a different page. Coming from a different place. Confused about our roles, if not our goals.

You see, I don't think most mortgage brokers would consider themselves a "customer" of a Realtor. This leaves  the implied implication that mortgage professionals must "win" the satisfaction of the Realtor (winning the customer over), that the Realtor is never wrong (like a customer is "always right"), and that the mortgage brokers main goal in the transaction is to satisfy the Realtor (like having a "satisfied customer").

Wow. This is miles away from the way I think. I think of the Realtor as my teammate and our job is to win the most important game in the world.

It does not matter to me if a Realtor refers me a client, or if the client arrives in my office, contract in hand, saying "Call this Realtor. They are handling my sale." In all cases, I want to join forces with the Realtor to close the loan on time, and end up with a client who would be thrilled to do another transaction with Realtor involved, or with me.

Make no mistake. My first priority is NOT to impress a Realtor. It is to impress our mutual client. I figure if I do that, everything else will fall in place. If the client raves about how well things went, and the Realtor is impressed enough to refer me future business, then that is a bonus.

It is not the point.

Certain behaviors that I have witnessed by Realtors now make much more sense. I realize WHY it is possible to have an ecstatic client, who refers you business multiple times, but his Realtor remains, well.... a "customer" who did not get satisfaction.

Could it be that the ROLE of being a mortgage broker (the Realtor's customer) is not the same as GOAL of being a mortgage broker (a happy client)?

How ironic is this?

And should it be surprising that Realtors think this way when only a very short while ago, mortgage brokers were merely a commodity in the marketplace where oversupply was the rule?

You remember economics 101? When supply is high, the price goes down.

It might pay to remember that the supply has vastly shrunk, and the quality, by sheer necessity, has vastly improved.

 

Written by Janet Guilbault, Mortgage Lending Expert Based Out of the San Francisco Bay Area.