Did ARs or DAs receive the best service and does case size matter?
Some of the most revealing insights from the previous Mortgage Finance Gazette Rated for Service Awards derived from the breakdown of lender scores by case number and broker status. While this time one might expect some small, subtle changes in perspective among brokers, once again the scores reveal significant differences in lender service depending on whether a broker is directly authorised (DA) or an appointed representative (AR).
In our inaugural survey last year, DAs scored lenders more favourably than ARs did within all three markets — mainstream, specialist and buy-to-let (BTL). This time the reverse is true, with ARs giving higher scores across the board. ARs made up 56% of those who rated lenders’ service, compared to 52% previously, with DAs accounting for 44%, down from 48% last time.
Of the 38 lenders that were scored in the mainstream market, just six received higher ratings for their overall service from DAs rather than from ARs. The previous Rated for Service scores saw mainstream lenders perform better in DAs’ estimation in three of the five key areas: strategic focus, sales support and communications, and underwriting and case processing. This time, lenders performed better in ARs’ estimation in all five business areas.
When the specialist lender scores were unravelled, only five of the 17 assessed lenders were rated more highly by DAs. ARs scored specialist lenders higher than DAs did in all five business areas. In last year’s survey the reverse was true.
In the BTL market, of the 36 lenders that were scored only nine received better ratings from DAs for their overall service. Again, ARs scored lenders more highly than DAs did in all five BTL business areas — a direct reversal of the previous scores, where DAs scored higher than ARs in all five areas.
The highest standalone AR score was awarded to mainstream lenders for their products, with the lowest score given to specialist lenders, also for their products. The highest DA score was awarded to mainstream lenders for strategic focus and the lowest was given to specialist lenders for their underwriting and case processing.
These scores offer interesting insights for lenders and networks in terms of how the two demographics view the service they receive.
Analysis by case size
When we look at service scores based on number of cases, this is even more intriguing. The lender scores have been analysed for brokers who submit either one to five cases per month, six to 10 cases, 11 to 20 cases or more than 20 cases. There is a clear pattern: the more cases a broker submits to a lender, the less favourable the score.
As with the scoring for DAs and ARs, these results are a direct reversal of the previous year. Last year, in both the mainstream and the BTL sectors, lenders received the lowest scores from brokers who had submitted the fewest cases — one to five per month. Specialist lenders scored the lowest among those who had submitted between 11 and 20 cases.
This year in every sector — mainstream, specialist and BTL — the scores were highest from brokers who submitted one to five cases per month, and lowest from those who submitted more than 20 cases.
Furthermore, mainstream lenders scored the best in all five business areas among brokers who submitted the fewest cases. The second-highest scores were given by those who submitted between 11 and 20 cases, followed by those who submitted between six and 10 cases.
Of the 38 mainstream lenders, only four received their highest scores from brokers who submitted the most business. This was mirrored in the specialist sector, where brokers who submitted the fewest cases gave the highest scores, followed by those who submitted between 11 and 20 cases, then six and 10, and finally more than 20.
Once again, brokers who submitted the fewest cases gave lenders the highest scores in all five business areas. Just two of the 17 specialist lenders received their highest scores from brokers who submitted more than 20 cases.
The pattern was the same for BTL lenders. However, the scores were much closer in this sector, with eight of the 36 lenders receiving their highest scores from brokers who submitted more than 20 cases per month.
The trend across all sectors — of higher scores being awarded by brokers with fewer cases — may be explained by the frustration of brokers who had attempted to submit a lot of cases during particularly busy periods, catching a lender when it was struggling with service delays.
The results are surprising, however, because one might have expected that the more cases a broker submitted, the more familiar both parties would become with each other’s way of working.
Click here to see all the results
From next week, Mortgage Strategy will publish the MFG Rated for Service Awards supplement, with all the results and analysis available in both print and digital formats.
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