Automating document chasing for mortgage brokers

Document chasing is the most repeated task in a mortgage firm and the one where clumsy automation does the most damage. A client who receives four reminders for a payslip they sent last Tuesday concludes that you are not paying attention, and they are right.

Done properly, automated chasing does three things: it makes the requirement unambiguous, it reminds at sensible intervals, and it stops the moment the item arrives. Everything else is detail.

Request by case type, not by habit

A single long document list sent to every client is the root cause of most chasing. A first-time buyer, a self-employed applicant with two years of accounts, a portfolio landlord and a straightforward remortgage need different evidence, and asking for everything guarantees that some of it is irrelevant and gets ignored along with the parts that were not.

Build a checklist per case type and let the case type set the list automatically. Then let the adviser add or remove items for the specific client, because there is always something.

Write the request so it cannot be misread

Most rejected uploads are caused by the request rather than the client. "Bank statements" produces one page, screenshots, the wrong account and a document with the account number cropped out.

Each item should say what it is, which period it must cover, what must be visible on it, and what format is acceptable. Say whether a photograph is fine. Say if a document must be dated within a certain window, because a client who supplies something two weeks out of date has done work for nothing and will not enjoy doing it again.

Where an item is unusual — a gifted deposit letter, a proof of the source of savings — add a sentence explaining why it is needed. Clients cooperate faster when the request does not feel arbitrary.

Collect through one route

Pick a secure route and use it for everything. Email attachments create version problems, sit in individual inboxes and give you no reliable answer to what has actually been received.

The team has to hold the line here. If one adviser accepts documents by email because it was quicker on the day, your status data stops being trustworthy and every automation built on it starts misfiring.

Trigger reminders from status, and stop them properly

The reminder schedule should be driven by the state of each item, not by a calendar that runs regardless.

• First reminder: a couple of days after the request, restating what is outstanding and how to send it.
• Second: shorter, warmer, with an offer to help if something is hard to obtain.
• Third: a person makes contact, because two ignored messages means something is wrong.

Suppress reminders for items already received. Suppress the whole sequence if the client has replied and is waiting on you. Cap the total number of messages per client per week, across all sequences, so that three separate automations cannot gang up on the same person.

Route exceptions to a human immediately

Some situations must never continue on rails: a client who says they cannot obtain a document, an applicant abroad, a recent bereavement or illness, a case that has been declined, anyone who has asked to be contacted differently.

Build the exception path first and test it. The most common complaint about automated chasing is not the frequency; it is receiving a cheerful standard reminder immediately after telling somebody that something difficult has happened.

Automate the filing, not just the nagging

The saving is not only in the reminders. When a document arrives it can be renamed to your convention, attached to the right case and requirement, flagged if it duplicates something already held, and turned into a review task for the case owner.

Automated checks can help spot a missing page, an unreadable scan or a date outside the acceptable range. Have a person confirm before the case record changes or the client is told their evidence is unacceptable. An incorrect rejection costs far more goodwill than a slow acceptance.

Make ownership visible

Every outstanding item should have an owner and a state that anyone can read: requested, received, being checked, accepted, rejected with a reason. Your dashboard should separate cases waiting on the client from cases waiting on your team, because they are different problems and only one of them is the client's fault.

Measure whether it is working

Track the time from request to receipt, the number of reminders sent per item, the proportion of uploads rejected, the number of cases stuck on documents, and the time your team spends chasing. Also watch the complaint and unsubscribe signals, because a process that gets documents in fast while irritating clients has not improved anything.

Review the rejected-upload reasons monthly. They tell you exactly which request wording to rewrite, and that single change usually does more than another reminder ever will.

The line to hold

Automation should make the requirement clear and the ownership obvious. The moment it starts sending messages without knowing the state of the case, or hides an exception from the adviser, it has stopped helping and started creating work of a more expensive kind.