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The pervasive use of artificial intelligence (AI) and technology has transformed how brokers now operate. Here, we ask brokers how they’ve harnessed technology to focus on client-facing time.
Australian mortgage brokers have increasingly adopted innovative tools and technologies, with artificial intelligence (AI) and automation having played a pivotal role in streamlining operations and enhancing client interactions. Whether it’s for marketing, administration, or identifying potential fraud, brokers have openly embraced tech in their day-to-day operations. While aggregators have been busy accelerating their AI capabilities through their CRMs, brokers are also looking further afield to expand their tech suite.
Specialised tools built by brokers are proving invaluable for streamlining core broking tasks. For example, Joseph Khal of The Lending Alliance raves about Quickli and BrokerEngine.
“Quickli is an extremely powerful tool. What I say to anyone that was a broker prior to Quickli being created is: ‘I don’t know how you did it!’ To go through and do multiple servicing calculators back and forth. Quickli is an amazing tool. It really, really is,” he told The Adviser’s New Broker podcast.
“And we use BrokerEngine as well. Again, I don’t know how anyone operated as a broker without it! It just makes life so easy. Whether it’s collecting data, documentation, even communication with the customer back and forth, setting all that up. The client should never have to reach out to you. You’re always talking to them. You’re always communicating with them every step of the way. That’s what the systems do for us.”
Arnab Baral from Cinch Loans – who has an IT background himself – told the Elite Broker podcast he is utilising multiple tools at his brokerage.
Baral highlighted the use of tools like product and pricing tool Stryd for proactive client management and underscores the efficiency gains in document management through onboarding platform Mystro.
“For the whole document collection from the fact find, even renaming of the documents – and in some cases, even understanding whether the document system is original or not… we are using Mystro for that. Getting the data from the client into our CRM probably takes end to end, 15 minutes,” he said.
Baral also utilises AI-powered email assistant Fyxer AI (“So if anyone emails me, it will come up with two options of how to respond. All you have to do is delete one and just send the other one”) and productivity tool Notion.
He told the Elite Broker podcast: “I have been using Notion for a long time. Notion takes care of my calendars as well. [If] I need a break, Notion can determine that. [If] I need to have a strategy session with my team or strategise something on my own... all of that Notion can do it. So it just learns as we go.”
Mainstream AI platforms like ChatGPT are also being regularly used by brokers in their day-to-day. For example, Baral said that he had used it to help detect potential fraud.
“You just tell ChatGPT: Give me the algorithm as to how to identify whether a payslip is forged or not, it will come up with the Python codes... you just have to prompt it correctly. It’s open source,” Baral said.
He further elaborated on the personalised automation capabilities of ChatGPT: “[It] has a feature called Project. You can feed in stuff over there and in time it will learn about you and then help you automate tasks that you keep on doing. For example, if I have to figure out that this is the LinkedIn post I’m going to do on a Wednesday morning, it will be there ready for me.
“You can literally go and tell ChatGPT who you are, what’s your writing style and make it personalised. It’s like another human literally thinking about you and understanding what you do and then automating."
Others are using ChatGPT for communication and marketing. Estelle Dejean from FINANS Broker told the New Broker podcast: “I am a very big fan of ChatGPT. ChatGPT has become my best friend…
“I love it because it streams out the process.. At times, my brain can get a little bit mushy, so if I said to ChatGPT: ‘Hey, this is the scenario, this is what I’m doing for my clients, can you please just rephrase that nicely?’ It changes it from an email that would have been received by my clients [as]: ‘She’s had a very long day, she needs a coffee’ to ‘Wow, this is amazing’.”
She also highlighted its strategic marketing applications: “[ChatGPT] is also great for marketing strategies as well; creating campaigns... As a second party, or tool, it has completely levelled-up our game when it comes to social media, our marketing, our strategies, our campaign planning for the quarter ahead. It saves time.”
Outside of AI, other tools that brokers use for their marketing and communications include social media platforms and template tech.
Cullen Haynes of Legal Home Loans championed the efficiency of marketing templates. Speaking on the Elite Broker podcast earlier this year, he said: “Canva’s fantastic. If you get templates, you can set yourself up for the year. All you need to do is when you meet someone and want to do, for example, a shout-out post, you’ve got a template. Insert their photo [and you’re] done. And it turns into a post… I utilise technology and templates a lot.”
Haynes also said that he utilises voice messages on LinkedIn (available in 60-second bites for first-degree connections via the messaging feature) to engage with clients.
The broker said that using this “underutilised” feature for client messages ensures they are remembered by the client, particularly as many users may not have received a voice message before.
“If you just start off with maybe like five messages a day, like that is better than the 99% of people who aren’t doing that,” he said.
The broking industry has been through a groundswell of new technological innovations and launches recently, with Australian mortgage brokers increasingly at the forefront of technological innovation, developing their own platforms to effectively address common industry challenges.
As well as widely adopted broker-built technology such as CRM BrokerEngine, software provider LoanOptions.ai technology, serviceability platform Quickli, and The Broker’s Bible, recent additions include scenario tech Cynario and portable CRM system Emerald Edge.
You can find out more about the cutting-edge tools that mortgage and finance brokers are using in the April edition of The Adviser magazine, here.
[Related: Brokers who ignore AI will be left behind – staying ahead is easy]
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