With a persistently tight housing market, the pressure to elevate customer engagement and streamline operations has put customer relationship management (CRM) technology squarely in the spotlight for originators. Forward-looking mortgage industry leaders are planning upgrades to these core tech platforms, recognizing the urgency to build tech-driven advantages in a hypercompetitive market. 

CRM technology systems are used to manage all interactions with customers, including direct interactions, such as sales and service-related processes, as well as forecasting and analyzing customer trends and behaviors. It is useful at all points during the customer life cycle, from discovery to education, purchase and post-purchase. According to Investopedia, CRM technology is the fastest-growing enterprise software category, with worldwide sales of $84 billion in 2024. 

But as with so many areas of our world, “the paradox of choice” can make building that technology advantage stressful. Amid the rapidly growing CRM and technology packages available, originators are met with dozens of options to choose from, ranging from purpose-built industry vertical solutions to generic horizontal cloud-based software as a service (SaaS) platforms, which are licensing models that allow access to software on a subscription basis.

There are some essential strategies originators can use to evaluate these tools effectively, and perhaps more importantly, choose the right CRM vendor for their growth goals.

Define future needs

Tech evaluation is too often defined by the loudest vendor in the market shouting about specific features or capabilities. But the decision should be made on your terms, not theirs. It should focus on how the technology supports your business. Think about the specific outcomes you’re looking to improve. For example, your goals might be enhancing client communication, improving lead management or using consumer insights to surface opportunities from your database.

For originators, defining their forward-looking needs in addition to current demands will naturally help them evaluate what a CRM platform can do for them today and whether its product roadmap aligns with where they want to take their business. Look at what investments a tech vendor is making to keep their platform at the leading edge of where the industry will be in four or five years. 

Once you’ve defined where you want to go, make a complete and honest assessment of where you are. Identify pain points and operational bottlenecks, then map them to specific workflows and technologies. Originators need to evaluate what does and doesn’t work about their current tech tools. This will help them better define what they want out of their new platform. This will also reveal gaps where their technology lacks critical functionality.

Moreover, originators need to look holistically at their technology ecosystem to find opportunities to consolidate. Everyone wants to do more with less, and the upgrade process can reveal opportunities to consolidate redundant solutions.

Capture ownership cost

In a cost-conscious environment, it’s tempting to only look at the price tag of a CRM platform. But the full cost of a CRM extends beyond the initial purchase price. The vendors deployment model, implementation, training and ongoing support all factor into the evaluation. Not to mention the significant cost of creating integrations your team will use and maintain over the duration of the contract. So, assess your team’s resources. 

Successful implementation is not a one-way transaction. It requires a collaborative partnership. As you dig into a vendor evaluation or a total cost of ownership (TCO) exercise, some of the most important questions don’t have answers that end with dollar-figures. Originators need to answer these questions: Do these people understand my business? Are they focused on the right things to help my business? And are they bringing strategies and advice to help me move my business forward, or just tools?

A strong spirit of partnership brings an added value that persists long after deployment. By prioritizing genuine partnership, originators can unlock the full potential of their investment and build lasting, mutually beneficial relationships that drive sustainable growth and customer loyalty.

Balance functionality, scalability

Mortgage originators need their CRMs to align with specific workflows. They don’t have the time (nor do they want to expand the budget) to accommodate an extensive customization period. This means most originators will avoid the generic SaaS cloud platforms. Instead, CRM platforms that are purpose-built for financial services can offer out-of-the-box functionality, pre-built with integrations that originators need to hit the ground running.

But a balanced assessment must be made, weighing this out-of-the-box capability alongside the broader flexibility and scalability of the CRM platform. Many hyper-focused solutions with plug-and-play capabilities struggle to scale and adapt over time. Upgrading to an enterprise-grade CRM can help businesses grow and evolve as their needs, workflows and customer expectations change. 

Lending is a relationship-driven industry. This often bleeds into tech selection, leading originators to narrow options based on gut feelings. Your evaluation process should always begin and end with hard data. Develop a rigorous and objective set of evaluation criteria focused on the outcomes you hope to achieve, and the gaps you need to address across the entire organization.

Specialized tools now exist to help businesses execute this type of data-driven vendor evaluation. Utilizing resources like these can streamline the evaluation processes and accelerate paths to a confident decision.

Research on business-to-business buying shows companies go through the majority of the buying journey before they engage with a vendor. This can be a mistake. Engaging a shortlist of vendors in your data-driven evaluation process can offer greater transparency and reliability to your process. By allowing vendors to self-assess your specific requirements, you can start to foster accountability and trust. 

But make sure you’re also demanding hard proof to back up these self-assessments. Ask vendors for performance metrics and client testimonials to validate their claims.

All the work you did to gather hard data and make an objective decision on a CRM system is your foundation for building buy-in and confidence among your internal stakeholders. Proactively communicate how you rigorously and objectively evaluated all vendors and their technologies. Make it clear why your chosen solution rose to the top, and if stakeholders have concerns or pushbacks, you can return to the hard data that drove your selection. 

No technology can be everything to everyone. But the CRM platform you choose should deliver the best mix of ready-to-use functionality, future-ready scalability, and practical ease of use. Standing on this objective foundation will pave the way for a smoother, faster adoption process.