Category: Press
Assurance Financial Earns Spot in the Top 10 Mortgage Companies for Customer Satisfaction in 2021
BATON ROUGE, LA – April 27, 2022
Experience.com has named Assurance Financial one of America’s top-ten medium-sized lenders in 2021 for customer satisfaction after receiving a 4.92 average rating on nearly 6,000 reviews.
Assurance Financial is also proud to announce that seven of our originators placed in the top 1% of Loan Officers in the country for customer satisfaction.
- Damian Cook of Atlanta, GA
- Elise Walker of Baton Rouge, LA
- Erinn York of Lafayette, LA
- Lauren Tylock of Lafayette, LA
- Lynn Sharer of Prairieville, LA
- PJ Tavernit of Baton Rouge, LA
- Willie Tucker of Huntsville, AL
With over a million reviews from more than 50,000 loan officers across 350 companies nationwide on the Experience.com platform, Assurance Financial considers it a great honor to be included among America’s top-ten medium-sized lenders.
“It’s a testament to the pride that our team takes in delivering an excellent experience for all stakeholders in the home loan process,” Assurance Financial CEO, Kenny Hodges, said. “Of course, the borrower is paramount, but communicating timely and accurately to all parties involved in the transaction has proven to be a great recipe for success. Between our Mortgage Loan Officers and our fulfillment team, everyone is working to ensure that we are going above and beyond the clients’ expectations.”
According to Experience.com, the results are based on survey completion rates, the number of reviews, and the star ratings submitted to the platform by verified customers.
Read more about the Experience.com 2021 Top Performer’s awards here.
Assurance Financial CEO and President, Kenny Hodges, was featured in an article by National Mortgage News on the mortgage industry’s increasing alignment with sports brands.
“From bass fishing to the Super Bowl, lenders see a large pool of consumers they can reach through athletic sponsorships.
“When you’re in a college town – in general – those colleges are one of the biggest employers. They’re really the main show in town,” said Kenny Hodges, CEO and President of Assurance Financial. His company has established business partnerships with the athletic departments at Louisiana State University, located in Assurance’s home base of Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as well as with the University of Alabama, University of South Carolina and University of Louisiana-Lafayette.
The sponsorships also provide a natural link between a company and younger consumers ready to enter the workforce, who frequently settle near their alma mater. A lender’s association helps create top-of-mind awareness among them as they begin their careers and enter the home-buying age.
“If you can get behind those types of schools, and show your support, we hope it means something to our customers and to our referral partners,” Hodges said.”
Assurance Financial made the 2022 National Mortgage News list of top 50 Best Mortgage Companies to Work For! When we say our culture is different, we mean it, and we continue to prove it.
The awards program is dedicated to recognizing lenders that are supportive employers and providing them with employee feedback on their strengths and weaknesses. The program is a partnership between National Mortgage News and the Best Companies Group, which conducts extensive employee surveys and reviews employer reports on benefits and policies. The employee survey covers eight topics: Leadership and Planning; Corporate Culture and Communications; Role Satisfaction; Work Environment; Relationship with Supervisor; Training, Development and Resources; Pay and Benefits; and Overall Engagement.
Why Market Adoption is Critical to the Success of Mortgage Process Digitization
Katherine Campbell, Chief Digital Officer at Assurance Financial, shares her tips for achieving mortgage process digitization and handling market adoption
Katherine Campbell, Chief Digital Officer at Assurance Financial who won the 2020 Housing Wire Tech Trendsetter award, shares her greatest success story in mortgage process digitization to date ahead of her session at PEX Live: Digital Mortgage Process 2022. Campbell also offers her advice for achieving mortgage process digitization and shares her predictions for the future of the field.
PEX Network: Could you tell us more about your experience with transforming the mortgage process? Would you like to share any success stories you have experienced?
Katherine Campbell: Transforming the mortgage process is the most critical conversation we could be having today in the revolution of the mortgage industry. The pandemic prompted us to move beyond a slow evolution and leaped into a revolution.
The number one point to make with our industry is that due to the incredible new capabilities of mortgage fintech, we need to rethink technology. Instead of thinking about the process and how to plug technology into the different steps, we need to think about the capabilities of the technology and how we change the process to adapt to it. The greatest success story I have is winning over the ‘never-adopters’ of the industry, comprised of mostly the loan officers. Throughout history, when someone’s work is evolved digitally, there is an understandable amount of angst and concern.
Our earliest technologies that we implemented were the point-of-sale system and ratings and reviews and there was initially a lot of resistance to these. After a few months, however, these capabilities made the loan officers the heroes.
During an incredibly busy time in the industry, clients did not have to wait to apply as a simple link and easy app allowed them to help themselves. Also, the ratings and reviews automatically posted to their LinkedIn and Facebook pages for easy access to references, proving their expertise and gaining more applications.
PEX Network: What is your top advice for organizations looking to achieve mortgage process digitization?
KC: My top advice is to get in the game. The greatest challenge of an industry going digital too early is not the capability of the tools, but the adoption of the market. If the market is not ready to apply online, login to their bank accounts on a digital mortgage app, or not willing to upload documents from an app on their phone, then all that ease is not increasing the pace of business.
Fortunately, digital banking is widely accepted. People are comfortable and most often prefer to handle the tactical pieces of a transaction by themselves. They want to handle the entry of their personal data. They prefer an expert to advise them on the best options as opposed to being asked their social security number over a phone line, for example.
PEX Network: What key developments do you see happening in the mortgage space over the next couple of years?
KC: The next couple of years should produce exponential progress with the digital mortgage. The first major improvement will be the wide adoption of ‘enotes’ and a remote online notary. Closing documents are the last piece of the puzzle that often still require an in-person transaction. This adoption across investors and regional offices will make a truly digital end-to-end experience.
The other key development will be the offering of additional products, either within the mortgage process or in addition to a mortgage. For instance, the ability to shop for your homeowner’s insurance or auto insurance would be natural benefits to a home owner while making a major financial decision regarding a mortgage.
Written by Adam Jeffs for processexcellencenetwork.com | 2/28/22
eClose Results: How Assurance Succeeds with Digital Closings
Featuring Assurance Financial Director of Operations, Scott Alexander
As Briana Ings, VP of Product at Snapdocs, kicked off the TMConnect webinar, Scott discussed how Assurance Financial’s partnership with Snapdocs on eClose technology has enabled them to optimize their operations. A huge stack of documents has turned into a couple of pages for their funders. They are not losing deals by physically shipping paperwork, and they are able to consolidate conversations from multiple vendors into one place.
Total Expert Accelerate 2021
Featuring Assurance Financial Cheif Digital Officer, Katherine Campbell
CDO Katherine Campbell joined Total Expert’s Chief Product Officer Matt Tippets on the “Game Changers Panel” at Accelerate 2021. Accelerate, organized by Total Expert, is a global customer conference that brings Total Expert, partners, and technology alliances together for two days of innovation, learning, and networking. This panel consisted of Total Expert customers who have driven impressive results for their organizations. These trailblazers shared the secrets of their success.
Read more about their conversation and relive the whole day here.
