Nobody loves the process of applying for a loan. Customers are often required to provide a substantial amount of financial and personal information, which can feel overwhelming. On the other side, an agent must collect and record this information, while ensuring accuracy and tending to any customer queries.
We live in a fast-paced world, and customers expect a process that is quick, effortless, and convenient. Unfortunately, when applying for financing, they are often met with outdated procedures, long delays, and repetitious questions.
Inefficient loan management systems aren’t only a headache for customers, but they can also add costs to the finance business. Collecting information is time-consuming and labor-intensive. Even after initial conversations, customers may still need to submit additional details and documents – further delaying the process. If their application is ultimately rejected, these labor costs can become expensive to the lender.
Companies that use Salesforce as a loan management system are already ahead of the curve, with the ability to automate many origination and risk management tasks. Those that use Chargent as an add-on to Salesforce, extend the abilities of their loan management software by making the loan repayment process flexible and secure.
In this post, we’ll explain exactly how to use a Salesforce Loan Management System with Chargent to expedite loan applications, manage customer information, and automate the financing and collection process.
3 Benefits of a Quality Loan Management System
Loan management systems are lending applications that automate the servicing of loan products and make managing payments simple. These systems aren’t just “nice to have,” but today’s customers prefer a streamlined online experience. Although baby boomers may have different preferences, millennials are beginning to displace them as the most significant consumer group.
Today, less than 20% of baby boomers pay loans with debit cards, but over 35% of millennials do so. Additionally, 61% of today’s customers view their loan statements electronically, 78% pay them electronically, and 80% of customers paying on the phone would prefer to switch to online payments – according to insights from ACI Worldwide.
Your loan management system should service your customers in the way they prefer to be serviced. In addition, it should allow your organization to:
1) Reduce Efforts
The journey from loan origination to complete payoff requires consistent effort from both your customers and your staff. With an outdated system, customers must remember to pay each month and then go out of their way to log into your system and re-enter their payment information. After which, your employees must update the customer’s file and record their payment.
If you’re experiencing these inefficiencies, it’s time to consider upgrading your system. By choosing the ideal solution, the process becomes simple and quick. With an efficient loan management system, you can fully automate all payment and collection activities. Not only is automation convenient, but it also ensures that transactions are recorded immediately and accurately with no human error.
2) Manage Information
During the lending process, you likely collect a substantial amount of personal and financial information from your customer. If you’re still handling your transactions on paper or collecting information over the phone, you run the risk of that information being lost, recorded inaccurately, or ending up in the wrong hands.
Fortunately, modern and advanced systems like Salesforce allow you to manage all of your customer information and payment transactions in a secure place – reducing your paperwork load and making it far easier to locate and access customer records. Furthermore, customers can service themselves through secure online forms at their own convenience; which streamlines the process, heightens security, and minimizes the efforts of your employees.
3) Exceed Customer Expectations
The lending process shouldn’t seem slow and confusing to your customers. They don’t want to fill out paperwork by hand, wait days for loan approvals, or go out of their way to send in checks every month – and with today’s technology, they shouldn’t have to.
Your loan management system should allow you to implement convenient and efficient processes to approve loans, manage payments, and communicate with your customers. With the right system in place, you can ease your customer’s burden; increasing satisfaction and boosting the likelihood that they will choose your company again for a future loan.
Using Salesforce as A Loan Servicing Software
Salesforce can adapt to numerous use cases, and many lenders find that it is the optimal loan management solution. When you make use of Salesforce to manage customer information for financing, you have the benefit of easily accessing and recording basic contact information, past sales, and other historical information. Salesforce can help progress your lending processes in several other ways too, enabling you to:
- Streamline Application Approvals: Long approval cycles can discourage customers, or even cause them to change their minds. Salesforce loan management systems allow you to quickly gather all required information from the customer with accuracy. Easy applying makes the process less intense on your customer and ensures that their applications won’t be rejected due to informational (human) errors. With instant approval, customers don’t have to wait days or weeks to find out whether they are approved – they can complete the entire process within a matter of minutes. If instant approval is not possible on your end, at least you will be receiving more complete applications, more quickly, and from more applicants.
- Create A Unified Experience: Salesforce unifies the lending experience and provides the technology that each party needs to manage their end of the loan. By combining a loan officer platform, online applications, and a borrower portal, by building your loan system on Salesforce you can ensure that all information is consistent and transparent.
- Integrate a Variety of Apps: One of the biggest advantages of using a Salesforce loan management system is the ability to customize the platform with thousands of third-party apps in the Salesforce AppExchange. With numerous app categories from marketing and analytics to sales and finance, you can adapt the platform to provide the specific functions that your business needs to operate at maximum efficiency.
- Allow Self-Servicing. One of the greatest benefits is that customers can self-service their loans; reducing the load on your staff and making it simple for customers to submit payments in an instant. If you want to extend Salesforce to a customer portal, Salesforce Communities is there for you. Chargent works in Salesforce Communities as well, enabling your customers to update their payment methods, select payment plans, schedule payments, and more.
When it comes to servicing loans, there’s one add-on that you should definitely consider – Chargent. Adding Chargent to your Salesforce process helps you expedite financing and payment collection without ever leaving Salesforce.
Benefits of Adding Chargent To Expedite Financing
Salesforce is a powerful customer relationship management tool, but it has its limitations when it comes to payments. The Chargent add-on removes these barriers and gives lending businesses a flexible payment solution that can be customized to their particular business model.
When using these two powerful tools together, lending businesses can streamline their processes, improve communications and data, and increase collections – with little human involvement required.
Streamline Processes
Without efficient processes in place, new business can seem like a hassle. Chargent puts the right features in place to simplify every step, modernize every touchpoint, and automate every customer communication.
Provide your sales team with the most dynamic finance and loan management package by integrating Salesforce with the streamlining tools of Chargent and a cloud-based lending solution like Q2. This combination allows you to originate, underwrite, fund, and service a loan or financing agreement instantly and in real-time.
Adding Chargent is a no-brainer if you want to get the most out of your Salesforce loan management system. With it, you can process deposits, establish payment schedules, and confirm payment methods –all within the Salesforce CRM and at the click of a button. Furthermore, it opens up your payment options, enabling you to accept payments through credit card or ACH bank draft, and giving you the ability to connect with over 30 different payment gateways.
Improve Communication and Data
Using Salesforce and Chargent together makes it possible for you to successfully manage communications with customers and other team members on a single platform. Schedule or set up automated emails to:
- Confirm details specific to the customer’s loan;
- Remind them of their upcoming payments;
- Notify them of changes to their financing or loan agreement; or
- Send receipts or invoices for payments
Additionally, you can set up tasks for employees directly in Salesforce. With more transparency regarding action items related to a customer’s loan, Chargent increases your team’s productivity while providing a higher level of service to each customer.
Chargent integrates automation into your payment process, increasing efficiency and eliminating errors that are common in paper-based, manual entry, and other outdated systems. For example, duplicate data entries are difficult to avoid when using multiple systems; but by using Chargent to manage all of the billing information directly in Salesforce, you can eliminate the need for reentering their information into a separate payment system. Feel secure knowing that the most current information is available to anyone reviewing Salesforce’s data sources for a customer loan.
Increase Collections
Operating a lending business without Automated Collections is like cutting your lawn with a pair of scissors. With Chargent, you don’t have to spend hours calling or manually emailing your customers to notify them of upcoming or failed payments; hoping that they’ll go out of their way to send a check or submit their payment online. Instead, you can automate recurring payments from their authorized debit cards or through bank account ACH / eCheck debits. Customers can choose to make initial deposits, agree to a payment schedule, and establish the details of their recurring payment.
What is the result of automating collections? More payments collected each month with less stress on your team.
When your team is working with clients to establish loan or financing details, a simple click in Salesforce activates Chargent’s tools and facilitates payment authorization with the customer. These same tools also make it easy for customers to change their payment details quickly so no payments are missed.
Taking the First Step Towards Loan Management Success
Efficient businesses are built on efficient systems. Establishing the optimal system for your organization will help ease and streamline every process throughout the financing and loan servicing journey.
If you want to customize the management of your loans, there is no better system to implement than Salesforce with the Chargent add-on. Take the first step towards loan management success and download our free 30-day trial.
