Customer Story - Chartwell Mortgage Services

Increase advocacy, ROI, and repeat business

Mortgage broker Chartwell Mortgage Services wanted to connect with customers more effectively and often to increase advocacy, ROI, and repeat business. The company is a directly authorised broker with no connection to any mortgage management networks and gives the business the autonomy to make technology decisions in an agile way without the need for sign-off from a parent company. “If we want to do something, we get on with it. We’re not driven by anyone outside of our management team,” says Sales Director Scott Howitt.

“It’s been so successful that we've had to pull advisors from another part of our business.” Scott Howitt, Sales Director, Chartwell Mortgage Services

Chartwell gets much of its business from new-build construction companies. They give the team their business free of charge, and Chartwell works closely with them to deliver support, particularly during uncertain times, like many construction companies are experiencing right now. Chartwell offers other services, such as business and life insurance and additional mortgage-related protection but connecting customers with mortgages is what primarily drives revenue for the company. The other side of the business is Chartwell’s client bank. Chartwell works hard to help its existing clients with queries, new mortgages, remortgages and the like.

Scott describes Chartwell as a ‘lean business’ with around a dozen advisors that punch well above their weight in an industry that can get bogged down in admin. He prefers to let tech take care of the process elements while his team do what they do best: selling.

“I'm a firm believer in letting people play to their strengths and letting them get on with it. When we interview people, and they tell me they’ve been doing ten or twelve mortgages a month, I tell them I've got people who do that in a week! And that’s got a lot to do with how much tech and administrative support we’re able to give them.”

Unified platform

To that end, Chartwell has invested considerable time, effort and money into automating many of its processes to make it easier for customers to interact with them. Operations Director Mark Allen picks up the story:

“We wanted a unified platform, so our guys have a simple, intuitive interface to manage communication in one place. That was the big driver for us, and the relationship with CM.com came about from lots and lots of research around omnichannel platforms, and it grew from there. We spoke to Sam (Windridge, Head of Partnerships at CM.com) and realised that CM.com was a good fit for us.”

Meeting people where they are

Chartwell uses our Mobile Service Cloud solution via a scripted WhatsApp chatbot to interact with customers. The output of those conversations is fed into Mobile Service Cloud to allow Chartwell to respond effectively to customer queries and book appointments for their advisers.

“We wanted to meet clients on the platforms they wanted to meet us on. WhatsApp is obviously very popular at the moment, and that's where we started with CM.com,” says Mark, “but it goes beyond that, and one of the attractions of CM.com is that we’ll be able to add other channels from live chat to Facebook Messenger and so on.”

Scott chimes in, “If I told you it’s been so successful in terms of people booking appointments that we've had to pull some advisors from another part of our business, that gives you an idea of how happy we are with the solution.”

“Right from the initial conversations with Mark, it was obvious there was something really exciting we could do with Chartwell. We both share this ambition to grow and go on a journey together.” Sam Windridge, Head of Partnerships, CM.com

Giving the customer what they want

In technology terms, the mortgage industry has been something of a laggard, and Scott sees Chartwell as an outlier in the mortgage space.

“Our industry has always been quite slow to adapt. It’s like we're on this pedestal, and the customer must fit our process. I'm a massive advocate of giving the customer what they want, not telling the customer what you want from them. The world just doesn't work like that anymore, and I think the businesses that come along on the journey will prosper, and the ones that dig their feet in will fall by the wayside.”

So what’s the next move for Chartwell? With Mobile Service Cloud now an integral part of their customer service efforts, they’re looking to expand its sphere of influence throughout the business.

“For us, a major part of CM.com’s appeal is that they have everything we need under one roof. That made the decision of who to work with really easy.” Mark Allen, Operations Director, Chartwell Mortgage Services

“We're going to build a number of journeys for the whole process, from the mortgage right through to when they come around to remortgage. We don't want to set people off on a five-year deal and then not speak to them again for four and a half years. We have plans to put a whole system of messaging and regular communications in for people throughout the journey.

“That's why we're working with CM.com, and why we've chosen to partner with them because they give us the platform to do that. We still want to push the boundaries, and this platform will help us position ourselves as genuine industry innovators.”