My Refi Journey: A Case Study on Customer Experience

When mortgage rates hit record lows, my wife and I agreed that it was time to research what refinancing would mean for our family’s finances. While I was successful in the end, it wasn’t what I expected. 

Knowing there are many tools, technology, and data that financial institutions use to better understand their customers, I was surprised by my experience. I didn’t hear from our current mortgage servicer, who, in leveraging in-the-money models would know that I would benefit from a refi. And, despite working closely within the industry, the process was still confusing. 

My journey confirmed that creating exceptional customer experiences is paramount and something many companies continue to struggle with.

The Story Unfolds

This journey, which took 6 months, started when I reached out to the mortgage lender we worked with when we bought our house. Though they sold my loan, the experience I had with them was so exceptional that I wanted to work with them again. They knew my preferred method of communication (email and SMS messages) and were more than willing to accommodate. 

The bank that owned and serviced my loan never sent me one marketing message—not during the life of my original loan (12 months) or throughout my refi journey. In fact, it wasn’t until we officially closed on the refinance that I received a “mortgage checkup” text message. This was poor timing.

I understand that I am just one of the hundreds of thousands of customers this big servicer has but the average consumer does not. That’s why creating great experiences and having timely, relevant communication is key to building brand loyalty and retaining customers.  

Why CX is So Important

Marketing professionals know that exceptional customer experience (CX) leads to loyal, repeat customers. Yet marketers, who have historically led CX, often struggle with delivering relevant offers and personalized experiences. In fact, only 36% feel their brands have a well-defined CX vision, which is likely why only 15% of consumers rate customer experience as “good” and none as “excellent.” 

The big problem is that customer expectations are outpacing the ability to meet these expectations to deliver the experiences customers want. These poor experiences are having a damaging impact on brands, resulting in declining customer loyalty. But, as simple as it sounds: If marketers can get the right message to the right consumer, marketing dollars can be spent in the right ways to create great customer experiences. 

Get to Know Your Customers 

For customers to form that loyalty, marketers need to get to know them and use this knowledge to deliver personalized experiences. Marketers can leverage alternative and unique data sets to learn more about consumer behavior to create marketing experiences that are appreciated. Successful companies are forming partnerships with data-as-a-Service (DaaS) companies to gain the right insight.

DaaS companies, like Jornaya, organize and provide access to shopping journey behaviors that enable smarter and safer interactions. Marketers who work with behavioral data are then able to optimize timing and messaging by leveraging the consumer’s preferred timing and method of communication. 

You might know about consumer behavior when the consumer interacts directly with your brand by visiting your website, responding to direct mail, opening your email, and picking up your phone call. But, the consumer’s journey isn’t centered around you, it’s centered around them.

Jornaya’s Activate solution is a monitoring platform that enhances customer data with the millions of online shopping behaviors we see every month across our network of lead generation and comparison shopping sites. Activate provides the only in-market shopping data and insights for major-life purchase (MLP) marketers in automotive, education, insurance, and mortgage. 

Imagine knowing when a prospect from last year is interested in a refi, like I was. Not only could you deliver a timely engagement to them, you can include messaging that is focused and targeted.

To learn more about Activate, watch the video on this page and contact us.

Chris van Roden is a Senior Account Executive at Jornaya. Contact him at cvanroden@jornaya.com.