The more you know, the more you sell

How data can be used to gain more business from people you have already done business with

When it comes to keeping customers and doing business with people you have worked with in the past, CoreLogic executive Olumide Soroye said there are two ways to put data to work.

“A lot of people have a book of business, but they don’t know what those people are doing with other lenders. You only know what they are doing with you. We have a view of the whole market, so we know what else they doing that you don’t see.  We trace it, we see all their transactions,” he said. “If you know they are going somewhere else, you can find out why and bring them back.”

Data can also be used to provide past clients, as well as potential clients, with information that is useful or at least interesting to them, such as recent sales in their neighborhood.

“You can use data to keep the customers you have. There is power in knowing what people are doing, what life events are affecting them. If you don’t reach out to them before someone else does, you will lose them,” Soroye said.

Soroye, CoreLogic’s managing director of Information Solutions, has degrees from Harvard and Nigeria’s Obafemi Awolowo University. He worked at QuinStreet and McKinsey & Company prior to joining CoreLogic.

Processing loans
Soroye said loan applications are a pain point for many customers, and that using data to remove some of that pain can turn a bad experience into a good one for clients and brokers alike.

“Good data can help you process the application in a way that gives the borrower a good experience,” he said.

“There is a lot of pressure to make the process more efficient. It costs an average of $7000 to process a loan from start to finish over 50 days, so a lot of people are not making a lot of money.

“There is severe customer pain in the process as well, a lot of shipping documents back and forth, answering the same questions over and over. No one is satisfied with the process. It is too hard and takes too long.

“You make them fill out these really long forms, and ask for information that people don’t have and have to find. If you could mine public data sources to autofill parts of these forms, and just have the client check it over for accuracy, you would greatly reduce their burden and give them a much better experience,” Soroye said.

While some people might be concerned about the amount of data that is public record, he said most appreciate how it makes the process easier, especially when the data is limited to things like legal descriptions, the size of a lot and the age of a house.  “People don’t push back on data. Not at all. Autofilling that sort of thing doesn’t create a ton of questions.

“Some things seem  a bit more invasive to people, verifying income from an employer for instance will raise questions, but you’re going to do it at some point, so doing it right up front gives them a chance to correct it so it doesn’t come up later and raise questions.

“People are getting more and more comfortable with the digital experience. People are getting used to autofill when they are filling out forms online. As digital acceptance gets higher, things like this will become even easier,” he said.

Next week: Olumide Soroye discusses how data can be used to improve risk analysis and the appraisal process.