Mortgage lead follow-up script

Experienced advisers often resist scripts, and they are half right. Reciting lines makes you sound like a call centre and clients hear it immediately. But the alternative most firms actually have is not natural conversation, it is improvisation that varies with mood and gets weakest at half past four on a Friday.

What follows is wording you can borrow and then make your own. Treat it as a shape rather than a text to memorise: the opening seconds, the questions that matter, the close, and the two messages that do the work when nobody picks up.

The opening twenty seconds

The person answering has forgotten they filled in a form, or has spoken to two other firms since, or is at work. Your first job is to place yourself and give them a reason to keep listening.

• "Hello, is that Rachel? It's Tom calling from Northgate Mortgages. You got in touch yesterday about a mortgage for a flat in Leeds. Is now an all right moment for five minutes?"

Three things are doing work there. You have named yourself and the firm, you have reminded them of their own enquiry with a specific detail so it does not sound like a cold call, and you have asked permission for a short, bounded amount of time.

If it is not a good moment, do not push. Ask for a better one and be exact about it.

• "No problem at all. Would later this afternoon work, or is tomorrow morning easier? I'll call you at ten past four, then."

Booking a specific minute rather than "sometime tomorrow" changes the second call from an interruption into an appointment, and people answer appointments.

The middle: find out what is actually happening

You are not giving advice on this call and you should not let it drift into a fact-find. You are working out whether you can help, how urgent it is, and what they need from you next.

Three questions cover most of it.

• "Tell me where you're up to. Are you still looking, or have you had an offer accepted?"
• "Has anything about your situation made this tricky so far, or made you think it might be?"
• "What would you like to happen next? Some people want a proper conversation this week, others just want to know roughly what's possible."

That third question is the one most advisers skip, and it is the one that stops you selling an appointment to someone who wanted reassurance, or offering reassurance to someone who wanted an appointment this evening.

Listen for the complication. Self-employed, a recent job change, a default, a shared ownership resale, a lease issue, a gifted deposit from someone unusual. When it appears, do not solve it on the phone. Say that you have dealt with it before, if you have, and that it is the sort of thing worth going through properly.

Do not promise an outcome. Nothing about how much they can borrow, no rate, no reassurance that it will definitely be fine. Everything you say on this call is a communication about a regulated service and has to be fair, clear and not misleading, and a hopeful sentence on a first call is remembered as a commitment.

Closing without pressure

The close is a diary entry, not a decision.

• "The next step would be a proper run-through of your income and outgoings, which takes about forty-five minutes and can be on video or over the phone. I've got Thursday at six or Saturday at half nine. Which suits you better?"
• "Before we speak I'll send you our terms of business and a short list of the documents to have to hand. Is this email address the best one?"

If they are not ready, say so plainly and agree what happens instead.

• "That's completely fine. It sounds like you're a few months away. Would it help if I dropped you a note in the new year to see where you're up to? I won't chase you in the meantime."

Then honour that. The single fastest way to lose a future client is to say you will not chase and then chase.

Voicemail that gets returned

Keep it under twenty seconds. Say who, why, when you will try again, and give one easy alternative.

• "Hi Rachel, it's Tom at Northgate Mortgages, returning your enquiry about the Leeds flat. Nothing urgent, but I've got a couple of quick questions so I can point you in the right direction. I'll try again tomorrow morning, or you can get me on 0113 496 0000 or just reply to my text, whichever's easier. Thanks."

Say the phone number slowly and twice if you are leaving one. Do not leave a message that says only "please call me back", and do not leave any detail about their circumstances on a voicemail you cannot be sure is private.

The text or email straight after

Send it within a minute of the failed call, so the missed number on their phone has an explanation attached to it.

• "Hi Rachel, Tom from Northgate Mortgages here. I just tried to call about your mortgage enquiry. Happy to work around you: is there a time tomorrow that suits? Tom."

Signed, short, no marketing, no attachments.

The second chase, two or three days later

The second attempt should not repeat the first. Change the time of day, and change what you are offering.

• "Hi Rachel, Tom again from Northgate. I don't want to pester you, so this'll be my last call unless you'd like me to keep in touch. If you'd rather I emailed you a short summary of what a broker would actually do for you and left it there, just say and I'll send that instead."

Naming the end of the sequence is oddly effective, and more importantly it is honest. Some people will reply purely because you gave them a way to close it off, and some of those will come back in four months.

Making it yours

Read these aloud. Anything that does not sound like you, rewrite until it does. Keep the structure, which is: identify yourself, remind them of their own enquiry, ask permission, find the complication, agree an exact next step, and leave the door open when the answer is no. That structure works because it respects the other person's time, and it is the part worth being consistent about.