Internal Company Efficiencies and Streamlined Workflow Increase Customer Service and Sales Growth

Some might think that what happens inside a company doesn’t go outside the company and the way that you handle internal communications, documents, and processes would never affect your client’s satisfaction; especially when you “know” that whatever operational deficiency that you deal with, never truly touches your client's experience. Unfortunately, just like Twinkies, it’s the inside that matters most.

Not so long ago, our company experienced a growth cycle, and during this time each and every component that was perfectly fine a couple of years ago had enough holes poked in them that we needed to refine, replace, and overhaul them to continue to scale with the ever-increasing local demand. While we could wait until things broke completely and replaced them as necessary - that would be reactive and we wanted a proactive approach that wouldn’t just be repairs - but really future proof our process and our systems for the years to come.

I won’t bother you with all the improvements that we made - but I will share with you some of the decisions we made as a company to further each of our internal departments.

Marketing:

Marketing has a challenge that faces all growing companies - it is keeping up with the demand for fresh, original, and compliant content while keeping the brand-aligned, messaging consistent, and creative cohesive. Keep in mind that our marketing team also serves our Mortgage Bankers with specialized / custom requests for their individualized needs. So an effort was made to both scale up our marketing, deploying a new library of customized yet compliant print materials, and to deliver fast turnaround times for incoming marketing requests. 

“When transitioning from a sales support team into a strategic marketing department - you need to make an adjustment to how you serve the sales department - you can’t stop the work you do, but you have to change the way you work,” says Nick Irmo. 

Using a combination of DropBox for Business, Microsoft’s Planner, Google Forms, Adobe Acrobat, and SharePoint - our employees are seeing both improvements in quality and speed. These new processes have allowed the marketing team to focus on larger campaigns and relationships improving tools.

Sales:

One of the many challenges that a Mortgage Banker faces is how to be in direct line of sight for all the people that they need to keep informed. They need to be able to quickly respond to borrowers, real estate agents, builders, underwriters, managers, and a whole slew of people on a daily basis - even after “banking” hours. That is the true testament to an Alpha employee, the willingness to go the extra mile and beyond to satisfy all. However, that doesn’t mean that the sales team wouldn’t do even better with some efficiency and workflow optimization. Prior to List Reports, the MyAlpha App, the new efficiencies we created in Encompass - our Mortgage Bankers had to work even harder to accomplish their day to day tasks. Now, with these new tools in play, the sales team can focus on building better relationships and explore new opportunities for further growth. 

Operations:

Workflow and organization are easy when you have a small department. Add multiple locations, over 100 employees, growing needs, and a bunch of departments and complexity becomes a day to day reality. So, sure we worked harder and harder to continue to accommodate the needs of the business, but we knew there had to be a way of getting better visibility, accessibility, and workflow from a company-wide roll-out of an Intranet. Intranets are powerful tools, but they’re often the unsung heroes of the modern workplace toolkit. The word is associated with clunky nineties software that’s impossible to navigate and full of outdated files. But, the world of work has changed a lot since then. And some intranets have evolved to keep up. Now they actually help you get work done, rather than inhibit it. Here’s how our business was improved:

• Documents and Resources Available 
• Knowledge Base and Training 
• Compliance Rules and Procedures
• Library of Assets and Tools 
• Internal Communications
• Multi-Location Connectivity
• Better Engagement
• Employee Onboarding
• Organizational Clarity
• Reinforcement of Brand and Values
• Reduction of Emails and Meetings

Brad Cooke has been instrumental in our operations - so much so that in the short amount of time he has been here, we already have noticed numerous improvements.

Human Resources:

After recently welcoming our new HR manager, Megan Russ, it wasn’t long before we all heard about certain improvements she thought would be effective at Alpha Mortgage. Her recommendation led to a full company-wide discussion of leadership alignment, performance reviews, and overall improvements in our recruitment efforts, and employee retention through better measurement, alignment, and goal setting. 

We chose more than just a system, we chose a complete solution to help us be better managers, better employees, and define our core values and company brand. 

At the heart of Performance Culture is:

• Align teams around your mission, vision and core values. Establish performance expectations and workplace behaviors that define success for each employee.
• Coach team members with the Performance-Values Matrix. Focus on key behaviors that drive results and support the company culture. Request 360° feedback to gauge management effectiveness and employee satisfaction.
• Evaluate the performance of employees, teams, and managers. Recognize and reward your star employees. Quickly assess if you have the right employees in the right seats.

Happy employees mean better customer experience which means building a better brand.