Consumers Want Online Customer Service Features.(mortgage lenders)(Brief Article)

Consumer use of the Internet has ramped up far more quickly than when other technologies were adopted in earlier decades, such as radio and television.

And as the dust begins to settle, we are getting a glimpse of what this means for lenders. On both the customer service and the business-to-business (B2B) side of loan administration, lenders are finding increasing pressure to make processing quicker and easier via the Internet, a variety of speakers stated during the MBA National Mortgage Servicing Conference here.

"Month by month, people are becoming more comfortable with transacting over the Internet," said Darren Holmes, senior vice president for borrower services at CitiMortgage, Inc.

"Customers are going online hoping to find transaction history, secure e-mail, document images, year- end and escrow statements. A good loan servicing Website can be a selling point for a lender's origination business."

On the B2B side, electronic billing and payment services, check creation software and lockbox-reject viewing (to cut down on overnight mail expenses) are among the services that can be facilitated on the Internet. David Dill, an executive with Meritech Mortgage Services, Fort Worth, Texas, said that using the Internet to provide routine information to customers is a promising strategy to cut down on call center volume for subprime lenders, which ...