Summary: During the mid-2000 mortgage boom, NREIS had awareness and credibility issues as they struggled to grow more than 300% in less than two years. Realizing that marketing was only a fraction of the solution, I led an executive management team of Sales, Operations, IT, and HR to create a company-wide customer experience program. The result—the company secured work with 9 of the Top 10 U.S. banks.
Capturing customer sentiment that the employees were their superheros, NREIS-man became a mascot of the customer experience efforts.
Challenge:
National Real Estate Information Services (NREIS) supports the residential and commercial mortgage industries, providing real estate information products to financial institutions. When I began leading the marketing and customer experience efforts in 2005, the company had a few Top 10 clients who had been secured through sales channels—I was the firm’s first Marketing Director.
In general, the mortgage industry was not aware of NREIS and many executives who were had misconceptions that it was a small, regional firm rather then one of the largest independent title and settlement services firms in the country. Seeking to diversify their business and expand market share, the CEO’s tactical goal was stated simply, but it was much harder to achieve—secure work with every Top 10 U.S. bank.
Strategy:
In order to secure work with major lenders, our strategy was to create brand awareness, establish NREIS staff as industry thought leaders, and increase customer engagement. Our goals were increased client volumes (we were receiving limited work from a few Top 10 banks) and to generate client referrals. Because the right brand message was critical to overcoming misconceptions, I led the management team and the ad agency in the revitalization of the NREIS brand and core messaging.
Customer interviews revealed that NREIS had a strong, core belief in customer service. Customers raved about the staff’s superhero-like attitude where “saving the day” was routine and “Yes, we can.” was always the answer. Unfortunately, due to a growth rate near 300%, this strong customer-focus was quickly eroded. The culture was not carrying through to new hires. We had a strong brand to hang our hat on, but it was being completely obscured by issues associated with rapid staff growth and IT systems that could not keep up with the expansion.
For the most part, the color palette and focus on employees carried the marketing and sales materials, and NREIS-man was brought out when a lighter touch was needed.
Tactics:
Branding — We began by giving life to the super-hero attitude and created NREIS-man, a tongue-in-cheek portrayal that quickly conveys the the staff’s always helpful customer approach. We also created a new visual design featuring strong, yet friendly colors along with photos and quotes from customer service leaders at every level in the organization. For the most part, the color palette and focus on employees carried the marketing and sales materials, and NREIS-man was brought out when a lighter touch was needed. For example, to promote a webinar series, we featured NREIS-man on an old-fashioned lunchbox stuffed with candy.
Corporate website with results-focused messaging. Real NREIS employees take center stage supporting the brand promise of the tagline “Our People Lead the Way.”
Marketing — We started by launching a new Web site and video presence that was then extended into highly targeted marketing tactics including personalized email and direct mail campaigns, the webinar series, online public relations, a new trade show presence, and a formal sales folder/flyer kit. The brand was carried to all levels of the company—anything that the customer touched reflected the brand including welcome packets, contact sheets, fax covers, performance reports and the company email signature.
Sales — With the right materials in hand, the sales team looked good, but valuable client information was getting lost between the signing of the sales agreement and delivery of the first services. Sales and operations weren’t communicating and the customer suffered. Working with the internal Sales Support team, we built a customer on-boarding process, supported by customizing the CRM Salesforce.com. This resulted in increased customer satisfaction, improved lead capture, and reduced overhead. The system was used by sales and customer service to communicate information critical to servicing the client; and by executive management to monitor account activity.
Customer and internal newsletters reinforce NREIS’ position as an expert partner by having employees share with the client and each other critical industry knowledge.
Human Resources and Operations — Because NREIS is a service-based company, a majority of the employees have contact with the customer and are therefore “customer service” staff. To create a consistent, positive customer experience throughout the organization, I worked with the SVPs of Human Resources and Operations to lead culture change and customer service efforts through internal communication initiatives such as newsletters and group meetings; process changes including the escalation of customer issues; and a training program focused on empowering the staff to make customer-focused decisions.
Information Technology — Working with the SVP of IT and his team, I served as the business sponsor and led the planning/design phases of a Microsoft SharePoint Server implementation that would further ensure customer information, company news, and training materials were more readily available to all employees thus allowing them to provide the best customer service and empowering them to make service decisions.
Leveraged personalized direct mail and email campaigns with landing pages to drive and capture lead generation.
Results:
The customer experience efforts dramatically improved brand awareness of NREIS as demonstrated by prospect feedback, increased invitations to significant RFPs from major lenders, and the doubling of new accounts set up monthly (despite a market downturn).
In 2008 NREIS became the market leader among independently owned firms, securing work with 9 of the Top 10 banks adding Bank of America, Wells Fargo, Wachovia and SunTrust to their existing Top 10 roster. But then the mortgage market crashed. Despite the closing or consolidation of several NREIS’ customers, the company has managed to perform better than the competition and today continues to operate at about 70% of it’s 2008 levels—a significant accomplishment in an industry that saw many firms close their doors.
