You’re not a magician… tell your clients

Why do people use mortgage brokers? One of the reasons is probably because they feel like they might get a better level of personalised service compared to what they’d get going directly to the bank. But clients are only partially correct if they think this and you need to tell them this.

A good financial planner will tell clients that he can’t guarantee that they’ll make money. They will tell clients that they can’t control the market – that’s not what they do. Similarly, we need to tell clients that we can’t control the banks. We can’t guarantee that the service will be perfect and there will be no mistakes, hiccups and so forth. And if you get a client that has (and keeps) this expectation, run the other way because your relationship is almost destined to fail. Instead, I suggest you tell clients that mistakes can happen and that there are only two things we (as brokers) can do about that. Firstly, we pick/recommend a lender that, in our experience, has a history of making fewer mistakes. Secondly, if a mistake happens, we’ll do our best to fix it, quickly.

Mortgage brokers can offer fantastic, personalised service which is highly valued by many people. Mortgage brokers however cannot guarantee a perfect experience with every lender. So beware of this incorrect client expectation and don’t be shy to educate the client. Better they expect mistakes and don’t get them than the reverse.