Customer service key in mortgage selection

Close to a third of mortgage shoppers are willing to pay a premium for superior customer service, a new survey examined by the New York Times shows.

The survey—conducted by the Carlisle & Gallagher Consulting Group – was weighted towards the upper end of the market, and showed that although price was still the overwhelmingly most important factor in the mortgage-selection process, a certain segment of consumers would pay more for a less stressful application process. 

“That millennial age segment values more the technology investments, the ability to have real-time access,” Doug Hautop, Carlisle’s lending practice leader, told the Times.

Trust in the financial institution was another key factor in choosing a provider. The survey showed that consumers were often frustrated with the bureaucracy involved in dealing with the big banks; respondents were particularly irked with a lack of communication and an inability to track the status of an application. 70 percent of respondents wanted direct communication with a representative.

“Because the experience has been where there’s a lot of repetition in documents being submitted, and a long cycle, people would rather have one rep so they only have to explain things once,” Hautop told the Times. [NYT] —Hiten Samtani