Customer Contact: Tools to Help Turn Lookers Into Buyers

Consumers don’t always rush into opening a loan. Most times, they will do some research and ask around before opening a loan. They will likely view your website, call, or go into one of your branches for an initial fact finding before deciding to open a loan. In fact, research finds that it takes multiple contacts with a person before they decide to purchase a big-ticket item that requires a loan.

The potential borrower may talk to one of your employees one day and a different employee another day, and neither one may even know that the other has already spoken to that same customer. Using our software, employees can record their interactions with potential or current borrowers, so everyone along the sales line will be up-to-date on what has transpired.

Current Borrowers

One of the best sources for new loans is to attract current borrowers to roll over their current loans into new loans. You may have a whole team of employees dedicated to offering current borrowers renewals on their loans. As discussed in the One cool little trick to compare potential loans blog post, when talking with current borrowers, employees can set up many different loan plans that would be attractive to the borrower using the Payment Calculator in CIM GOLD.

But the borrower may not opt in to any of those plans at that time, but maybe in the following weeks they decide they’d like to take advantage of one of those plans. The plans stay on the account unless someone manually removes them, so you could easily apply the loan plan later and finish finalizing the renewal loan.

Or, maybe the borrower is still indecisive about whether to renew the loan, but later they are talking to one of your employees. The employee has their account open on the Loans Marketing and Collections screen Contact tab in CIM GOLD and notices that the customer has three loan plans they have been offered, as shown below:

Loans Marketing and Collections Screen Contact Tab in CIM GOLD

When an employee sees information in those fields, it provides a great opening to remind the borrower about those loan opportunities. They could say,

“I noticed we offered you a few loan renewal plans recently. Would you be interested in taking advantage of any of them today?”

The nice thing about how CIM GOLD displays the plans directly on the Contact tab is that the little details borrowers like to know are right there. The employee can communicate with the borrower what their monthly payment amount would be if they rolled over the loan into a new loan, as well as getting back $1,000; $1,500; or $2,000 cash back, as shown in the example above.

If the borrower is not interested, the employee can record their interactions with the borrower right there on the Contact tab, as shown below:

Loans Marketing and Collections Screen Contact Tab in CIM GOLD

Now there is a record connected to the account of any interactions that have transpired.

New Borrowers

If you work with dealers through our eGOLDTrak system, then you are likely already very familiar with the messaging system. When borrowers go to a car dealership or other retail establishment to open a loan to purchase a product, dealers can refer customers to a website, where the customer can apply and be approved for the loan. We call it: eGOLDTrak.

Dealers can send messages to your institution through the eGOLDTrak website, and you can return with a message as well, should they need any assistance. All interactions are recorded and saved on the Message Center screen.

After dealers click Send Message, the following notification will pop-up on the computer of an employee at your institution:

The employee can go into GOLDTrak PC and respond to the dealer using the Message Center screen, as shown below:

This screen is searchable, so you can find important messages left previously in the communication trail.

Additionally, GOLDTrak PC, which is the program used to finalize and board loans into CIM GOLD for loan servicing, also provides a way to track any information that can help with opening a loan using the Notes screen.

GOLDTrak PC Notes Screen

With a coordinated effort and good communication left on accounts or loan applications, your employees will come across to current and potential borrowers as someone who listens and cares. It’s the little touches that may give you an advantage in the lending market. If best practices are used throughout your company, your sales associates will strike borrowers as competent, friendly, and trusted.