Why Mortgage Advice Brokerage chose Acre
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About MAB
Mortgage Advice Brokerage (MAB) is an independent, family-run mortgage and protection brokerage with offices in Glasgow and Dunblane. We spoke to Directors George Williamson and David Rolleston about why they decided to switch systems to Acre, and what their favourite features are so far.
With a strong focus on client satisfaction, MAB was looking for a technology provider that could help them deliver modern, digital experiences for their clients. The goal was to make it easier for clients to upload all their necessary information so that meetings were less focused on filling out fact finds, and more about diving straight into delivering valuable advice.
Client portal is king
Since the pandemic, a lot of client services that were previously being delivered through face-to-face meetings have had to quickly switch to being managed digitally and asynchronously. The Acre client portal was designed to be more than simply an online fact find, we wanted to provide a fully featured collaboration tool that let clients become more active in the process. This helps brokers deliver the same high level of service as before, leveraging technology to save time and increase productivity.
“A client portal is the whole reason we shopped around. We weren’t happy with our previous provider's portal. We looked at a lot of different providers out there, about six or seven. Since COVID, we do most things remotely and so the main thing is the client portal.”
A full picture up-front
“What we're finding is we're getting between 70% and 95% of all the hard facts completed by clients. The real game changer is A) having that upfront before the first meeting and B) the credit file. So you can see if there are any blips or anything there. And it's also allowing us to be really productive in that first meeting.”
A lot of time can be spent on gathering basic client information in the first meeting, but this isn’t the true value that mortgage advisors bring to their clients. Acre’s client portal lets clients share their information and documents, and pull a soft credit report, all before the first meeting. This means advisors can understand their situation as early as possible and focus instead on more impactful conversations right away.
“It's all there and done and dusted. And even better when they do the electronic ID checks, pull through the credit report and actually complete their income and upload documents which many, many clients do. So you can be really well prepared, and that's a godsend!”
Improved team collaboration
“We’ve got admin staff and case managers in different offices, so we can see who's doing what bit of work at any point in time. And it's very easy, from a management point of view, to actually see that kind of good overview not just of what I'm doing, but what the whole business is doing”
As well as improving communication and collaboration with clients, Acre has helped with teamwork through features such as diarised reminders which can be assigned, as well as referring cases between team members.
“We’ve just taken on a new protection broker so we can actually now do the referral link rather than doing protection ourselves if we’re really busy we're referring over to our new broker, so that's a very slick process. It puts notes into his diary so he can just pick up and run with that on the protection side so it works very, very well”