0
0
Remember the song, “It Takes Two” by Rob Base and DJ E-Z Rock? This late 1980’s classic carries the hook, “It takes two to make a thing go right. It takes two to make it outta sight.” I heard this song recently and thought about the work I do As the leader of LoanLogics’ audit service delivery team, and as someone who has been focused on operation excellence and client satisfaction for the bulk of my career, these lyrics resonate with me. They are the foundation of what makes the relationships between LoanLogics and our audit services clients successful.
Every day my team and I are accountable for meeting countless service level agreements on everything from compliance reviews to pre-fund audits. To ensure we stay on course and deliver to our clients, we leverage LoanHD®, our own rules-driven loan quality management platform, to efficiently guide our auditor workflows.
However, collaboration is still the key. Clients should always play a role to help support successful project delivery by working with their audit services provider to ensure the entire process stays seamless from start to finish. I share a few of those strategies below.
Minimum and Maximums
One of the reasons lenders choose to outsource loan quality is because mortgage volume always fluctuates, and resource management can be a challenge during the peaks and valleys. While audit service providers, like LoanLogics have their own ways to manage the volume (primarily through the use of technology automation) clients can ensure their audits are prioritized with their vendor by identifying minimum and/or maximum loan volumes that will come through the audit queue each month. This gives service providers greater visibility into their unique project to complete the job on or ahead of schedule.
Ready to Receive
Some audit service providers offer their clients quality control (QC) on a flow basis. This means that as defects are surfaced, lenders can receive immediate visibility and begin working on clearing them. To capitalize on this benefit, lenders should identify staff on their team that will be responsible for receiving those email notifications and ensuring they’re addressed in a timely fashion. Establishing an internal process can ensure timely condition clearing and eliminate end of the month backlog.
Ongoing Calibration
When beginning any relationship, it’s important to make sure things are going right early on so it continues to go in the right direction. LoanLogics likes to check in with its new clients after a few initial loan file reviews take place. This helps identify that processes set in place are checking all the right boxes for delivery. For example, while your outsource provider should already support best practice rules and audit tests, there may be additional custom tests you would like to build in to better align with your risk profile
As a long-term strategy, clients should meet with their audit service provider on a routine basis to go over the results and discuss any areas where improvements can be made to address overall quality and process. The frequency of these meeting can vary depending on the individual client’s needs.
One final strategy? Ask your audit service provider for more information on how you’re doing. Sending too many duplicate documents or having more than average versions of Closing Disclosures and Loan Estimates could be costing you money. The key is to work with your provider to optimize your process, manage risk and improve your lending practices.
In life and in business, the most successful partnerships are the ones that have both parties committed to putting in the work to “make it outta sight.” My hope is this blog and Rob Base remind you of new ways you can work better with your audit service partner because after all, “It takes two.”
Be sure to read my last blog with tips for helping your team embrace technology adoption in your organization.
