The cherryplc.co.uk forum has responded to user requests by creating a space where brokers and advisers can cite their frustrations and suggestions so that lenders and other providers can be informed and encouraged to listen and change.
Cherry’s forum now has a dedicated thread for advisers to suggest how providers – and specifically not just lenders – could help intermediaries more.
Donna Hopton, director at cherry, said: “It will be clear to anyone who has read the Cherry broker forum over the past two years that communication between brokers and providers needs improving. It’s important to stress that this extends beyond just lenders: it covers the whole gamut of providers including IFA product providers as well as networks, IT providers and many more.
“At Cherry we’re increasingly finding that advisers want us to channel their feedback through to providers as they seems hugely frustrated by what may possibly be viewed as collective deafness across the provider community to intermediary concerns.
“This new thread on Cherry is accessible only by ‘advisers’ so they need to rely on us to communicate their messages to lenders and providers. Advisers simply wish to help to guide providers towards a much better understanding of what works well and what needs fixing.
“Crucially, in addition to listening and acting upon feedback from this thread, it is essential that all industry providers start to make use of their own provider forum areas on Cherry. Many providers have already taken up this opportunity and are posting regularly in their own company dedicated forums, but many more need to come on board so that the industry and communicate both horizontally and vertically, thus speeding up the ongoing improvement process.
“Through Cherry, the entire mortgage and financial services arenas now have opportunities for engagement that have not existed in the past. We want everyone’s lives to be made easier and at the same time our aim is to achieve improvements in both consumer perception and actual satisfaction.”
An example of a point raised is that advisers would prefer lenders to refrain from notifying the client, by text, when a mortgage offer is issued, at the same time as they email the broker with the news. They explained: “The happy moment of telling a client that their offer has been issued is a nice positive and some lenders even steal that from us now. They do not tell clients when a case is declined so they also should not do instant notifications about offers.”
Further examples include issues relating to pointless queries by underwriters, use of the phone rather than writing, product withdrawal timeframes, honesty re timescales, use of pre-valuation services, and having common terms for criteria.