"It's a winning situation because the customer stays with us and the broker gets paid."
Paradigm Quest is enjoying its highest retention rate to date, and according to the company’s vice president of operations and customer experience, it’s because of a simple formula.
“A lot of lenders, including ourselves, were going directly to customers, but we decided to try to communicate with our brokers during the renewal process, and what that did was bring a lot of deals back to us,” said Rachelle Gregory. “Our retention rate steadily increased every year and we’re having our best year yet.”
Gregory has been running the renewal and retention team for four years and admits that rule changes mandated by the government play a role in ameliorated retention, but it doesn’t tell the whole story.
“Sometimes we see it’s a result of government rule changes and customers being handcuffed to lenders, but for us, we streamline the way we communicate with our renewal customers,” said Gregory. “That’s our bread and butter and our brokers’ bread and butter, because all of the lenders that Paradigm deals with are trailer fee lenders, so we changed the way we communicate with brokers at renewal.”
The strategy has proven so successful that mortgage brokers have become de fact extensions of the Paradigm team.
“A lot of brokers use my renewal team as an extension of their own sales team,” said Gregory. “They’ll call the customer and say someone will be in touch 90 days prior renewal and offer them some really great rates. It’s a different way of doing business to retain deals, and we’re seeing a lot of customers simply renewing rather than refinancing compared to a couple of years ago.”
Paradigm is earning rave reviews from brokers, as well. In addition to having the lowest payout penalties in the country, a revolving door of top-qualified clients have become the rule rather than the exception.
According to Angela Calla of the DLC-Angela Calla Mortgage Team, Paradigm’s partnership model proffers brokers more control throughout the process, which translates to happier customers.
“If we place a mortgage with a major bank, we have no control and no way of knowing what their experience will be like, or what level of expertise they’ll be given,” said Calla. “We can often feel the frustration from our clients because we don’t have control. With Paradigm, I have the ability to be involved with the process.”
While B-20 hasn’t been optimal for the industry, it has at least given brokers yet another reason to use Paradigm.
“If you were a lender who did not pay trailer fees, it may not make sense to go to a broker because a lot of brokers who are not earning trailer fees when a customer moves may decide to take them to another lender,” said Gregory. “But for us, it’s a winning situation because the customer stays with us and the broker gets paid.”
