Mortgage brokers should allow artificial intelligence (AI) to deal with the simpler, mundane aspects of the job so they can prioritise relationship-building and business growth, it was said at The Mortgage and Protection Event (TMPE).
Responding to Danny Belton, head of TMG Club and partner strategy at TMG Mortgage Network, saying brokers needed to educate themselves on market developments to keep up with clients, Paul Flavin, industry consultant and coach, said this was true because the vanilla market was getting smaller, which was “brilliant” for brokers.
“The vanilla world is one that AI is going to take, and that’s getting smaller because so much more [business] is off-sheet, and as you educate yourself and educate your clients. You’re worried about AI taking over vanilla – stop worrying, because [the market is] getting smaller,” Flavin said.
Gurpreet Chahal, regional sales manager at Accord Mortgages, agreed, saying a third of applications submitted to the lender fell outside of its criteria, and these were the people who needed advice.
Keeping up engagement
Flavin said leads typically fell into three categories: people who were interested in getting a mortgage but were not ready, interested and ready, or not interested.
Mind the affordability gap
Sponsored by Newcastle for Intermediaries
He said people who were not yet interested should still receive some form of communication, “because they might be interested tomorrow”, while among the people who were interested but not ready, “20% or 30%” were potential business opportunities.
Flavin said no broker should expect to retain clients if too much time passes without an interaction.
He added: “If they start going on a nurture journey and they receive newsletters like ‘five things you should do when you’re a first-time buyer’, then get a phone call every sixth week with a little bit of advice… that’s what people buy into.”
He said these regular communications could be automated with AI, saying the technology should “take away the mundane heavy lifting to give brokers the time to build relationships and educate”.
Understand the limitations of technology
In an earlier session, Paul Adams, sales director at Pepper Money, said clients were using AI to figure out their mortgage options before seeking advice.
He said brokers would need to correct these AI-based findings and said the more holistic a view an adviser had of clients, “there’s going to be an expectation from the regulator that this is not just a mortgage transaction that’s here today, gone tomorrow. You’ve got this customer, look after all of their financial needs.”
Adams said even if they were not ready to buy yet, advisers should work with them for a couple of years until they were, so they would be seen as indispensable.
Jonathan Stinton, head of intermediary partnerships at Coventry Building Society, said research carried out by Lloyds showed that although 56% of consumers used AI for financial needs, 83% did not trust it.
He said people would use AI to get a sense of what was going on but still use advisers for help.
“Understand the limitations of AI, don’t be frightened of it,” Stinton added, saying it would not be there to reassure clients late at night and show empathy like advisers could.
Emily Hollands, group head of distribution at OSB Group, said the “AI boulder was coming down the hill” and there was “no escaping it”, so brokers should look at how it could assist them and make their lives easier so they could spend more time with clients.
“Let tech do the ordinary, so you can do the extraordinary, and that’s the human interaction,” she said.
Hollands said it was also important for brokers to consider the potential for AI to be used for fraud, saying it made “all of our jobs harder, at the same time as making it easier”.
Interested in attending TMPE? Register here for the Southampton and London events, taking place on 12 and 13 November.
Read more coverage from this year’s event:
