The Intermediary –- June 2026 - Flipbook - Page 63
Q&A
touch, especially when they are making big
financial decisions.Human judgement is still
critical where advice, reassurance and context
are needed. I do not think the advice element will
meaningfully disappear or be replaced any time
soon.
supported by automated reminders and delivered
through a professional client portal, helps build
confidence early.
Where are advisers still losing the
mainstream residential?
most time?
Onboarding is often where a prospective client
forms their first impression of a business, and
expectations have risen. Clients want a process
that is easy to understand and efficient. Word
document fact-finds and email checklists no longer
cut it. Advisers and administrators still spend too
much time chasing missing documents, going back
and forth with clients, converting files, renaming
documents and checking information manually.
The biggest opportunity is to remove as much
low-value manual work as possible – chasing
documents, collecting form information over
phone calls, renaming files, asking for document
passwords or converting documents into PDFs.
That creates more time to check in with clients,
speak to them properly and support them through
the transaction. It also gives more space to have
proper protection conversations, with medical
questionnaires built into the process, and to ask
for referrals when they have done a good job.
Those last-mile customer service moments can
be overlooked when everyone is busy, but they
often make the biggest difference. We have seen
first-hand how quickly firms can grow when they
automate the right tasks, freeing up mor
more time for
the human support clients reall
really value.
As more broker firms adopt tech,
is client experience becomin
becoming a
key differentiator?
Client experience is already a major competitive
differentiator. Rates and lender access are
important, but they are relativel
relatively consistent
across much of the adviser mark
market. From the
customer’s perspective, the quality of the advice,
communication and overall proc
process is often
what stands out. Onboarding pla
plays an important
role in that. A simple, professional pr
process can
increase referrals, because clients ar
are more likely
to recommend a firm that makes things eas
easy
and efficient. It can also improve ne
new customer
conversion, particularly where clients ar
are speaking
to more than one adviser before deciding who to
work with. A clear, branded onboar
onboarding journey,
Is specialist finance becoming a
bigger driver of innovation than
I think both markets are driving innovation,
but in slightly different ways. Specialist finance
often involves more complex cases, more
documentation and tighter timelines, so there
is a strong need for technology that can reduce
friction and improve speed. That is encouraging
innovation, particularly around sourcing and
packaging for more straightforward cases.
Residential still has plenty of scope for
improvement too, particularly in the broker-tolender application journey. There is still too much
rekeying of information between systems, and
better connectivity between advisers, lenders and
platforms could remove a lot of duplicated work.
There will naturally be overlap between the two
markets. Client onboarding is a good example,
because many of the same challenges in collecting
data and documents exist across residential and
specialist finance, even if the cases and clients
themselves are very different.
Is the wider property transaction
process lagging?
The wider property transaction process in the UK
is still far slower than it should be. The mortgage
element is only one part of that journey, and in the
vast majority of cases, is not the main driver of the
overall transaction timeline.
Conveyancing is often the area customers and
advisers find most frustrating, but I do not think
this is a technology issue. The bigger problem is
that some firms compete heavily on price, take
on too many cases at those lower margins, and
then struggle to provide the level of service and
communication customers expect. That creates
delays and a poor experience for everyone.
We are already seeing new AI-enabled
conveyancing firms entering the market, which
is encouraging, particularly where AI can reduce
manual work, improve visibility and help firms
manage cases more efficiently. But technology
alone will not solve the issue unless service
standards improve across the board, with greater
accountability from regulators where firms
consistently fall short.
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