Imagine a mortgage customer sitting up at 11.30 pm on a Saturday night, worrying about what happens when she renews her mortgage this year. She’s had a long day of paying bills and running errands. The price of her food shop has nearly doubled since this time last year, while her wages have stayed the same. She’s been just about scraping by every month, but this morning, a letter arrived from her bank telling her that her mortgage is up for renewal, and although she doesn’t pay a lot of attention to finance news, she knows that interest rates are the highest they’ve been in decades. She knows that this means something potentially ruinous for her budget. She knows the horror stories co-workers have been swapping on their lunch breaks. Hundreds more every month, they said. Having to dip into their savings, they said.
But she doesn’t have any savings. They were exhausted during the pandemic during a brief spell of unemployment. Hundreds more pounds every month isn’t even remotely possible for her. She’ll go into arrears, face repossession, maybe even bailiffs. What if they take the car? How will she get to work?
It’s Saturday night, so she can’t call the bank to stop her thoughts from escalating, but she decides to meet the problem head-on by doing some research before she goes to bed. She Googles “‘renew mortgage 2024’ and feels her chest tighten as she skim-reads the results.
“Sleepless Nights: UK homeowners fear 2024 mortgage timebomb”
“Renewing your mortgage in 2024: What to expect”
“Renewing a mortgage: a challenge in 2024”
She switches to YouTube. These results aren’t any better.
“Avoiding the payment shock”
“Mortgage renewal woes”
“Remortgage: Five things you MUST do”
By now, she’s found a pen and paper and is furiously making notes. Things to ask, things to avoid, things she must remember when she speaks to her lender on Monday. Some of these things don’t even apply to the type of mortgage she has, but she writes them down anyway. More information is always better, right?
Well, no.
We know that simplicity is key and that jargon-free, personalised content is most effective. We know that customers engage with content when it’s relevant to them and that proactively initiating conversations helps us identify customers who are struggling to understand or showing signs of distress. We know this because it’s what we do here at Eligible: bridge the gap between customers and financial institutions.
In partnership with some of the UK’s biggest lenders, Eligible has developed the first AI-driven in-life servicing platform for mortgage customers. As a white-label service, our system starts conversations and monitors responses for signs of stress or misunderstanding. If the customer from our thought experiment above had access to our platform, she’d have been able to see immediately what her best options for renewal were at 11.30 pm on that Saturday night. She’d have been able to delve into the details using our extensive library of educational resources, and, most importantly, she’d have been able to request a call back from her lender on Monday morning.
We’re on a mission to eliminate financial anxiety for UK homeowners. To find out how we’re doing all that and helping financial institutions demonstrate Consumer Duty compliance, get in touch today to book your demo.
