Mortgage Servicing Companies Are Given Highest Ratings By Electric Customers
In 2005, J.D. Power and Associates’ conducted its first study of customer satisfaction with the nation’s largest mortgage services. In case you don’t know, a mortgage service is the company that handles payments and customer service-related issues. The servicing company can be the original lender, an affiliate, division or a mortgage service company the lender hires to perform those duties. J.D. Power found that customers who pay their mortgage online or through automatic deductions rate their home mortgage servicing company significantly higher than customer paying by mail or phone. The Power survey based its findings on the mortgage servicing companies’ performance in five primary areas: overall service experience, billing, payment process, annual account review/administration, and interaction experience.Electronic Mortgage Payment Advantages
The advantages of electronic mortgage payments are not only saving the cost of postage, but also the cost of late fees and ultimately credit damage. Consumers can set up electronic accounts to automatically deduct payments, see account activity 24 hours, alert impending payment that are due, and alert when there is suspicious activity. Another advantage of electronic payments is that they remove the paper trail of documents often associated with identity-theft. The vast majority of consumers, who've used and rated electronic payment services on the Epinions.com website, also gave high ratings to the services. In addition, Javelin Strategy and Research, a consultant for financial services, conducted a study last year which stated that online account holders typically see their accounts four times as often as paper-based customers. Those customers only view their billing statements once a month due to regular mail.
The Satisfaction of Online Payments
J.D. Power found that while only 20 percent of customers surveyed pay their mortgage online, those who pay online or through automatic deductions rate their loan services significantly higher overall than customers paying by mail or phone. Furthermore, customers who currently receive an online bill notification are among the most satisfied overall. However, only 6 percent indicate they actually take advantage of this option.
Offering Convenient Payment Options
Consumer are always looking for ways to save time in paying their monthly bills, the convenience factor. Even though the options are out there, customers say that they would like to pay or receive their mortgage bill online than actually do. The mortgage service companies would gain a great deal of recognition if they only made the customers aware of the convenient payment options. They might even differentiate themselves from others in the marketplace once offering or advertising the service.
Customers Would Rather Use Electronic Options Than Speak With Representative
The Power study also found that customers gave low ratings to loan service companies if their representative didn't speak clearly. Unfortunately, it seems the reason for the complaint is for poor articulation of words. The customers who had difficulty hearing what the service representative was saying rated their experience very poorly; more than 300 index points lower than those customers who indicated they had no difficulties comprehending the representative they spoke with.
Who Ranked Well In The Mortgage Servicer Study?
The 2005 Primary Mortgage Servicer Study was based on responses from 9,214 home mortgage customers. Sun Trust Mortgage, followed closely by World Savings, Bank of America and Countrywide were at the top of the favorable ratings heap for mortgage service providers.