For many title companies, vendors are an important extension of their business. Unfortunately, vendor turn times for orders are a common obstacle for businesses looking to provide a predictable closing experience. According to a recent study from WFG, turn times are the top operational challenge that title companies are facing. By collecting accurate and timely data on vendor turn times, title companies can identify opportunities to optimize vendor operations and increase order predictability.
Assessing vendor performance to deliver on predictability
Reporting plays an essential role in identifying bottlenecks and opportunities for title companies to remove obstacles to create greater consistency and predictability. If reporting is a time-consuming and inefficient process, title companies may neglect reporting and miss out on key insights. By centralizing vendor operations and using the right reporting tools, title companies can gain a bird’s eye view of vendor performance to create data-driven operational strategies.
Finding an efficient way to collect, track, and analyze turn times and other vendor data—such as number of orders and average cost per order—can provide key insights to help businesses increase order predictability and reduce closing delays. For example, Qualia Marketplace users can pull the Vendor Performance Report to quickly see key performance metrics. By leveraging the insights in this report, title companies can see a comprehensive view of how vendors are performing and opportunities for improvement.
Centralizing vendor operations to identify patterns and trends
The sheer volume of vendors that title companies work with during the closing process makes it challenging to compile vendor data into actionable reports. Since vendor performance data may be scattered across multiple tools and in various formats, it can be difficult to see a comprehensive view of vendor operations.
Understanding how certain product types are performing is crucial to seeing larger business patterns and trends. Decentralized vendor data can make this process challenging. For example, ordering products and services from multiple places can make it difficult to see the big picture of vendor operations. Consolidating this data can help title companies identify product trends and patterns to transform vendor operations and provide a better client experience.
Creating a report that examines patterns by product type can hone in on key vendor performance trends. For example, an agent can pull information on price trends, turn times, total spend, and product ratings for a specific product type, such as a tax search or notary signing. This data can help agents identify top-performing vendors and products to save time and create a smoother ordering process. Agents can also use this data to set up automations during orders to help save even more time when working with vendors.
Using reporting to deepen vendor relationships
Understanding how vendors are performing can help title companies standardize how they evaluate vendors, which can build stronger partnerships. For example, reporting can allow title agents to analyze vendor predictability by seeing which vendors consistently deliver exceptional products and receive high ratings. With this information, agents can pinpoint top-performing vendors and prioritize them for future orders.
If vendors are not performing as expected, accurate reporting can spark an honest conversation to help improve performance. Reporting can also reveal vendors that are going above and beyond. During a recent webinar, Matthew Bachner, Title Operations Manager at LemonBrew Abstract, explained that reporting has been a valuable tool to help his team manage vendors during closings. “Reports in Qualia help keep us and our vendors accountable. Using these reports, we discovered that [our vendor] was actually delivering their products back to us sooner than what they promised.”
To learn more about how reporting in Qualia Marketplace can provide actionable insights to help your business scale and grow, schedule a demo today.
