VWR Capital raises the bar on service standards

This article was created in partnership with VWR Capital Corp.

It’s a well-known fact that brokers need things yesterday. Turnaround time is paramount, and VWR Capital Corp. realized “our challenge is getting back to brokers quick enough — we’ve been very honest about that and we’re making changes to address it,” says Steven Lang, national sales manager.

“We struggle at times to keep up with the demand for our product, and at times we aren’t living up to our service standards on new applications,” Lang adds, noting that while the ultimate goal of any private lender is return for its investors — and it’s delivering on that front — it’s critical to provide the right kind of support to brokers to meet their own clients needs.

“We’ve redone a ton of processes internally, hired more staff, and for the past couple of years we have been working on bringing all of this together through an updated system for our sales and underwriting team. There are a lot of ups and downs during change, but we are committed to our vision and we are ‘all in’ on making it easy to do business with VWR Capital.”

Ramping up communication

VWR Capital is a stand-out in the market known for niche products and low fees, but it’s time to expand that stellar reputation to include the service side of the business. The main goal of the technology upgrade is to enable greater communication with brokers, including better line of sight for BDMs and brokers on the status or progress of their applications. The new system will take care of that administration side, providing automatic responses and system generated internal documents such as a new commitment letter and instruction documents for solicitors. This change sounds so simple, Lang says, but it’s critical given that “sending an acknowledgement or status update, even a day late, creates more work for all parties and can be a deal breaker.”

As it stands, VWR Capital deals with any licensed mortgage broker but in the face of increased regulations and demand for quick turnaround time, it’s a laborious process to walk a first time broker through the entire workflow.  With the new system set to improve line of sight to production results, “we’re telling brokers we’ll give them turnaround priority, in exchange for volume commitment from the broker, as an example,” Lang says, adding they’ve developed ways to flag these relationship commitments to ensure this service standard are met. The system, in the near future, will help VWR Capital  stay data informed, enabling a pilot broker incentive program, which is something brokers ask  for continually — and something VWR Capital is excited to deliver.

While Lang recognizes brokers run their business in their own unique way, its critical that they remain flexible and adaptable in their approach.

“What we’re doing with our system is fairly basic to start. Although we have integrations with the top broker lending platforms in the marketplace, we ensured the ability to adjust, add or simply remain flexible was still there should it make business sense for all parties. We are added this new technology without adding extra work or training to our partners, such as a separate broker portal, which can be a roadblock for many brokers in doing business with a lender,” Lang says. “That’s a value add, and in the private space, portals tend to be a touchy subject with brokers. There is already a lot of pressure on brokers having to keep up with lenders policies and adding in a portal is a route we did not pursue while still providing data and privacy protection. We have not cut corners to improve efficiency.”

VWR Capital continues to improve its broker centric website to provide items brokers need, while maintaining the ease of accessing the information within the one-page site along with the assurance the site is up to date and just a click away. It’s not 400 clicks to get answers as it might be elsewhere — “Or even with us in the past,” Lang notes — it’s straightforward and again goes to streamlining the process to make it easy to do business with VWR Capital.

Doubling down on what works

VWR Capital is well-regarded in the equity-based lending space and its foundation isn’t changing. Known for niche and simple products, low fees, and differentiators such as low fee renewals of mortgages paid as agreed, the lender is building on what it already does well.

Lang recognizes there’s been sacrifice on all sides during the changes, but he says the BDMs are honest with brokers about what the goal is, that there will be a period of discomfort, and that it’s OK as the team at VWR Capital is committed to communicating and supporting through any channel needed. He’s confident that the changes VWR Capital is undergoing will drive all parties forward, aligning brokers and lender in a shared quest for growth.

“At the end of the day, it’s creating a simpler, organized workflow for brokers that prioritizes volume and speeds up turnaround time. We’re asking for their patience for a bit longer in recognition that this is short-term pain for long-term consistency. Being around for this long as a lender, if you asked our top brokers, trust in us is there, financially and product-wise — now we’re putting trust in them to go through the next stage of this journey. It will be worth their while.”