Sunbelt Rises: New call center expands outbound calling efforts for brokerage

Call volume for Sunbelt First Financial Inc. should increase substantially this fall when Florida joins the list of six states where the firm is licensed to offer loans by telephone.

This made it all the more important that Sunbelt – which currently conducts outbounds campaigns in California, Louisiana, Mississippi, Nevada, Ohio and Utah – finished automating and moving its teleservices loan processing center and headquarters in May.

The Las Vegas-based mortgage brokerage and banking firm expects to generate $50 million in residential loans this year by phone. Sunbelt offers more than 60 different lending programs, including home equity loans, home improvement loans, second mortgages and debt consolidation loans.

Sunbelt replaced its outdated telemarketing center – outfitted with 15-year-old equipment – with one modern electronic loan processing center.

“We needed a more sophisticated dialer because our old one couldn’t weed out more than 50% of the answering machines and wrong numbers,” says Craig Henkle, vice president of marketing and management information systems.

The new teleservices center was installed by Data-Tel Info Solutions, a Mesa, AZ-based division of GSM Software Inc. Its $70,000 winning bid included 36 computers, predictive dialer software and peripherals, using off-the-shelf technology instead of more expensive customized technology, says Data-Tel president Scott Murray.

During the first week of operation of the new center in late May, phone reps made 13,418 phone contacts with prospective borrowers. The percentage converting to actual loans was small.

Sunbelt develops calling lists in-house using telephone directories, credit data and other information. The lender doesn’t often rent outside lists because tested files rarely generate more than a .05% lift in response rates, which doesn’t justify the rental cost, Henkle says.

Telereps as loan officers

The increased teleservices efforts has allowed Sunbelt to effectively turned phone reps into loan officers able to process electronic loan application forms, generate online credit reports and electronically transfer other financial data necessary to fund loans. “We’ve taken a quantum leap,” Henkle says.

Until recently, at the end of each telemarketing shift someone had to physically carry handwritten loan applications to Sunbelt’s administrative officers, where a receptionist would pull up credit reports and attach them to the applications for review. The new system includes an electronic version of standard loan application forms and allows phone reps to generate and attach online credit reports in about 20 seconds, before transferring the data to a teleservices loan officer for review. Some reps strictly generate leads. Others make follow-up calls to speak more in depth with applicants to determine their needs and promote specific loan products.

Telereps generating leads fill out four-page loan applications while interviewing prospects, after recording the prospect’s verbal permission to pull up their credit report online. The recordings are stored in Sunbelt’s database to comply with legal requirements for accessing credit reports.

Depending upon the level of interest and credit report, phone reps either tell the prospects that a loan officer will review their application within 48 hours and call them or immediately transfer the call to the next available teleservices loan officer. “We call the second option a hot key transaction,” Henkle says.

Phone reps feed a constant stream of applications to loan officers, who are allowed to maintain a maximum of 10 to 12 applications for review at one time, all of which are tracked by computer. The loan officers must follow prescribed procedures embedded in loan underwriting software for determining which to approve or reject.

Henkle says all approval and rejection decisions are reviewed to make sure loan officers don’t just cherrypick the easiest transactions. If during the review process it is determined an application was rejected too hastily, it is electronically sent back to the loan officer’s inventory.