Growing referrals through client education

Building relationships with clients before they are financially prepared to take on a loan has paid off for South Australian broker Priya Ravi.

Priya is a mortgage and finance broker at Rise High Financial Solutions in Adelaide and won the Customer Service Award – Individual at the 2022 MFAA State Excellence Awards South Australia/Northern Territory.

She regularly works with clients to help them set savings goals that will give them a pathway to a successful loan application, always being honest and genuine to nurture the relationship.

“Clients don’t like to go back to people who tell them ‘you can’t achieve this now, this is how much you need, come back to me when you have the money’. By giving my clients a goal, making sure they have a plan of action, and a timeframe means that they do come back to me.

“I talk to them about their income and how soon they’ll be able to save and get to that figure. I also educate my clients by explaining how lenders consider their income – net income, living expenses – and what to be mindful of because when we do apply for the loan, lenders will be looking at those things. They then start to have a different approach to their money,” said Priya.

While spending time working with clients who aren’t eligible for a loan yet doesn’t generate revenue immediately, this approach to client education and support is something Priya says has paid off many times, and has become an important source of lead generation.

“I’ve had clients who aren’t ready to do their loan yet, but they had a couple of work colleagues who they referred onto me,” Priya recalled as an example.

With her strong focus on customer service and not wanting her clients to be left waiting, Priya explained that she always responds to them, even if it is to say she has seen their call and will phone back.

One way she does this is by sending a text message to clients if they call when she is unable to answer. She has customised quick response messages on her phone so she can easily reply in situations like when she is in a meeting.

“Clients don’t like feeling ignored or feeling that someone isn’t responding to them, by sending that simple text message to let them know I will return their call, they feel acknowledged,” she said.

Priya had already begun studying for her Diploma of Mortgage and Finance Broking Management when she joined Rise High Financial Solutions in a full-time administration role, with the aim of transitioning to being a broker.

With the support of her employer, in addition to her fulfilling her full-time role obligations, Priya spent 18 months doing additional work as a broker building a client base and referral network before taking on broking full-time.

Despite the extra hours required during that period, Priya says this pathway to broking gave her the opportunity to not only maintain an income while she established herself as a broker, it also gave her the chance to learn in action.

“The good thing about doing the administration role and transitioning to broking was I learnt a lot more about the industry by being ‘in the office’,” she said.

Priya’s final advice to other brokers – don’t chase growth at the expense of your existing clients.

“Existing clients are your referrers, they’ve had that experience of working with you, and it’s hard to bring them back. You also lose everyone they would have referred to you as well,” she explained.

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