Operational efficiency and consistency are critical for delivering on-time closings that meet and exceed client expectations. Examining time-consuming tasks can help businesses optimize their current processes and identify long-term solutions to improve their closing experience. In addition to delivering faster closings, efficient processes can help businesses scale operations, provide smoother transactions, and prioritize more impactful client-facing tasks.
During a recent webinar, Qualia’s Director of Product Strategy, Angela Lozano, and Qualia’s Enterprise Customer Success Manager, Matthew Bachner, tapped into their years of experience to share opportunities for creating more efficient processes—specifically for HOAs and payoffs. They provided actionable insights on how title companies can improve their processes to deliver faster closings.
How manual processes and lack of consistency can result in closing delays
For title companies looking to grow quickly and manage fluctuating order volume, manual processes may be holding them back from accomplishing their goals. Lozano and Bachner outlined some top operational hurdles contributing to slow processes.
For payoffs, Lozano explained that lack of standardization often contributes to title agents following a wide range of manual processes. When acquiring payoff statements, title agents often need to collaborate with multiple lenders across various communication tools. While some lenders may have a streamlined process and get back to title agents within hours, others may require longer, more complicated procedures. This lack of standardization makes it difficult for title companies to predict turnaround times and provide consistency to clients.
Like payoffs, collecting HOA documentation can lead to headaches during the closing process. Bachner shared that in his experience, manual workflows that involve finding an HOA, contacting that HOA, and confirming fees and documents can result in wasted time and delayed transactions. Additionally, any errors or extra back and forth with HOAs when acquiring information can make it difficult for title companies to meet closing deadlines and provide a predictable closing experience. By automating many of these time-consuming tasks, title & escrow companies can create significant time savings, speed up closings, and improve client experience.
How to leverage automation to deliver faster closings
Title companies can simplify how they order closing services to save processing time and improve predictability during closings. One impactful way to build more effective workflows is to leverage automation to accomplish manual tasks. By incorporating automation into their workflows, title companies can speed up previously time-consuming tasks while also giving their agents more time to deliver human touchpoints for tasks that can’t be automated. Lozano explained that by optimizing workflows, businesses can strike a balance between speeding up processes and delivering excellent customer service. “It doesn’t have to be so painful. You can get to the point where all of the ordering and the receiving of the payoff statement can be automated, and then you can use your expertise to take it from there.”
Implementing an automation strategy can help title companies identify opportunities to create more streamlined workflows. Automating small tasks, such as opening orders for closing services, can create substantial time savings when taken at scale. During the webinar, Lozano and Bachner outlined some ways to get started with automation today:
- Send an Automatic Request: Automatic information requests remove the need to repeatedly call and email clients and other transaction parties. For example, in Qualia Connect, this type of automation can be set up to gather payoff and HOA information from clients without needing to manually follow-up multiple times.
- Configure Smart Actions: In Qualia, users can speed up order processing by automatically sending messages, sharing documents, assigning tasks, and more by incorporating Smart Actions into their workflows. Smart Actions are groups of tasks and automations that will only apply when certain conditions are met, such as when a payoff or HOA contact is added to the file.
- Leverage Task Autocompletions: With task autocompletions, tasks will automatically complete as users work on a file in Qualia. For example, when a payoff statement is delivered by a Marketplace vendor, this will automatically check off related workflow tasks.
Not only does automation take time-consuming tasks off agents’ plates, but it also enables businesses to scale their operations. Bachner explained that “All of these seconds and minutes are going to add significant time savings for you and your team to become a lot more efficient in other areas of your operation.”
By investing in automation now—during periods of lower volume—title companies can future-proof their business and optimize their workflows to prepare for an influx of volume in the future. Doing so can help businesses consistently deliver fast closings and excellent customer service regardless of transaction volume. To learn more about how automations in Qualia can speed up closings, connect with a product expert today.
