FR: SortRefer has seen considerable growth in the last year – what do you have coming up in the next 12 months?
Watch this space! 2014 was a fantastic year for SortRefer with record business levels and recognition as a market leader in our sector - winning best conveyancing panel manager at both the Mortgage Strategy & MoneyFacts Awards. The next 12 months will see us increase our distribution channels, offer additional products to our Introducer base, provide consistent website improvements and further IT functionality.
FR: How important do you think the online experience is for brokers – do you think it is gaining significance in the industry?
Hugely important. Coming from an intermediary background I fully understand that the online experience is key. I recognise the frustrations that conducting business online can bring within various parts of our industry.
We offer far more than any other portal in terms of an online ‘experience’, with our website being cited as part of the reason for picking up the awards and the Management Information that we provide is second to none. Yet ease of use for the intermediary is of paramount importance and obtaining accurate quotes and instructing on cases can’t be any quicker or easier with the SortRefer offering.
FR: SortRefer has a carefully vetted panel of providers – do you feel this is limiting to advisers using the site?
If by limiting you mean a small number, or limiting for choice, then definitely not. As you state, we carefully vet our panel and have selected only quality conveyancing firms that are committed to excellent customer care. This allows us to offer nothing less than a first rate service to our Intermediaries and just as importantly, their clients.
Our providers must be happy to integrate their systems with ours and have capacity to work with our ever growing instruction levels, without ever compromising on service.
FR: How has the conveyancing market changed in the wake of MMR?
Talking to our providers, MMR has had quite an impact on the conveyancing market. The biggest difference is the length of time being taken from instruction to completion, with this typically being extended by as much as 4 weeks.
I think that it’s also reasonable to say that conveyancers have seen an increase in the number of cases that are being cancelled due to the fact that a client can’t obtain a mortgage. This can typically happen many weeks into the transaction. One of the knock on effects of this is that non specialist conveyancers are becoming more cautious and are not applying for searches until an offer has been approved resulting in even longer delays.
Additionally, a lot of lawyers are delaying reporting to their clients until mortgage offers are received, which impacts on the speed at which a chain progresses.
FR: What is the most important piece of advice you would give to an intermediary starting out in the market today?
The market is very different to when I first started as a Financial Adviser in the late 80’s, but the advice I would give hasn’t changed greatly:
Obviously, you need to make the advice easy for the client to understand and you must always provide a quality customer service, however, I believe that the most important piece of advice is to show that you really care about your client.
When considering my advice to them, I always thought “What would I do if I was in their position?” This always demonstrated to them that the role I played in what was one of their life’s biggest financial decisions, really mattered to me – a belief that remains and holds true throughout SortRefer.
