Artificial intelligence isn’t coming to the mortgage industry—it’s already here, and it’s fundamentally reshaping how lenders engage past customers, manage database outreach, and scale production without sacrificing the human touch. In this episode, AI Assistants in the Mortgage Space: How Intelligent Outreach Is Rewriting the Loan Officer Playbook, David Lykken sits down with leaders from Total Expert and Assurance to unpack real-world success stories, compliance considerations, and the operational readiness required to implement AI-powered voice assistants effectively. From transforming credit trigger conversions to scheduling loan officer appointments automatically, this conversation reveals how lenders can turn AI-enabled outreach into a competitive advantage—and why those who resist may soon be left behind.
David: Folks. I’m excited to have Jessica things and Mike Russell here with total expert. And Jessica is with Assurance. And we were talking at the Total Expert Conference. I tell you folks, if you get a chance to go to the Total Expert Conference, it’s one of those conferences that are must go to every year. I get to go, I get invited, I’m a partner with Total Expert, and the content is so rich. It was a couple years that I was there, and someone says, you need to meet this guy by the name of Mike Russell. He’s the fixer. In other words, anything that needs to get fixed, people call Mike and he’s got this reputation. Now the company’s grown and his role has changed. It continues to expand, but that’s what I love about Mike. And then when I listened to him and Jessica on a panel, there were several others there. there were some things that came out of that interview or out of that panel discussion that we wanted to share with you listeners that I’m really excited about. So let’s get started with Jessica. Good to have you here. I love your energy, Jessica. you are so passionate about what you’re doing with Total Expert. And it is really fun to see people that are on fire for something that have a passion for it. So glad to have you here. And of course, Mike, good to have you back. It’s been a little while since we’ve had you on. you always bring great content. Good to have you both here.
Jessica: Thank you, appreciate it. Thank you for having us.
Mike: Yeah, thanks, David.
David: So, I want to hear a little bit, start with your perspective, Jessica, how is AI entering the mortgage space? then Mike, if you can add on, you guys have really bought into the total expert vision, Jessica. And I want to start how you see this really entering and transforming the mortgage space.
Jessica: Absolutely, mean, I think, AI is going to completely transform everything that we know about our working relationship with technology, with our clients. And this isn’t limited to just mortgage, but specifically, I think, in the mortgage space. I think now is the time that there’s a lot of fear, right? We hear this a lot. There’s a lot of hesitancy around getting behind AI. But I think the reality is that AI isn’t replacing one originators. It’s helping them elevate. It’s helping them focus on that business side of their business versus the what’s in the database side of their business.
David: Great point.
Mike: Yeah, I think when Total Expert started down this path, and it happened very, very quickly, and I know we’ll talk a lot about speed a little bit here today, but when we started down this path on how Total Expert as a technology provider can infuse AI into our platform, there was a lot of different paths we can go, right? And the one that we saw very quickly was, again, this leveraging artificially generated voice to actually outreach to consumers. And again, it’s not, you know, the goal, like Jessica has mentioned, is not to replace loan officers, but like, like we’ve always talked about all those loans that were closed in 22 and 23, if we get a significant rate drop, you know, there’s no way these loan officers are going to be able to contact all of them. Right. So, so that’s really where we kind of put our focus on is how can we leverage AI to
David: So true.
Mike: Supercharged loan officers, but then actually drive value to the bottom line, as opposed to just, you know, some cool bells and whistles that can be in the platform, which are still valuable, but really driving those high impact, high reward types of opportunities. And it’s been a lot of fun to see.
David: Yeah. And you guys really have done that. And Mike, I have a question for you when it comes to the implementation of T’s new automated AI dialing. And everyone in the market department gets it and is really excited about it. talk a little bit about what we’re talking about when we mean automated AI dialing.
Mike: Yep. Yeah, so what we’ve essentially done is as opportunities arise in a loan officer’s past book of business, right? So, you know, using total experts already out there in the market customer intelligence platform where we’re monitoring for credit alerts or rate alerts or equity, those types of things, we essentially bolted it onto that where historically you’d send an email. You’d send an SNS and maybe the loan officer would call two or three times, right? Well, what we’ve done is based on those kind of triggers for an opportunity, we have a hyper personalized automated outreach channel where the AI sales assistant will start calling down on that person. And again, they don’t call once or twice because we know that consumers typically don’t pick up until after the 10th call. So it’ll call them.
David: And to say that again, that’s an important statistic, not until the 10th call.
Mike: 50% of consumers do not pick up until after the 11th call. So it consistently contacts them. And then once it does get them on the phone, again, it’s not, you know, really taking it over from there, but the goal is to get the consumer on the phone with a loan officer. So based on those use cases, those triggers automatically that assistant’s gonna start reaching out to your past customers, get them on the phone, and then once they do, get them in touch with the loan officer to take the next steps.
Jessica: I would say one of the things that has been most impactful for our loan originators who have been using this technology since June of this year, when we started piloting this program with total expert is that they have the capacity to do the parts of the job that only humans can do, right? Ava, our AI dialer, we named her Ava, Ava with assurance. I do too, it’s my favorite. Ava, you know,
David: Ava, yeah, I love that name.
Jessica: Ensures that the loan originator gets meaningful moments with their contacts versus the loan originator being the ones who have to do those 10, 11, 12, 15 calls that part can be automated but the human part the human element really is what the loan originator got into the business to do and still gets to do by leveraging this technology.
David: This has actually started producing some great results. We’re gonna get into those stories in just a minute Jessica, but one of the things I wanna know is there is a fear of many loan officers about being replaced. And so should I adopt this? How did you guys overcome this?
Jessica: You know, I think that initial fear of anything new, right? You know, when social media first came around, that was nerve-racking. We didn’t really understand what it was at the time. And now look where we are. I don’t know anyone who doesn’t have social media these days. So I think with anything new, there’s a reluctance, there’s a hesitancy, how is this going to impact my business? But very quickly,
David: Or even how it’s going to impact my existence. It is one of those things. Think the greater thing is like, is this going to make me like go the way the dinosaurs extinct? No.
Jessica: Right, right exactly. But I think the point is, know, kind of what I was saying earlier is that we already use automation in our daily world within the mortgage industry. We use price point, email automation, text message automation, loan originators. Those are not coming from the loan originator, right? We are leveraging the automations to once again allow loan originators to focus on the human element. This is just another addition to that human element. So I think once the Loan originator sees that in action and sees a result, typically, right, we see somebody else try something first and they’re like, well, they’re getting results. I’m going to jump in on this train.
David: Yeah. It’s interesting that they’re followers when that guy’s cause most salespeople should be how did so the, what was the key? This is what I really, the key to the question is what was the key that allowed you to move the needle in there? know the story. I just want to make sure that people listeners hear it from you.
Jessica: Absolutely. So the key was again, we were in a pilot, we started the pilot in June and within the first couple of weeks, we started the pilot only with our servicing book and ⁓ only with credit triggers. So we can talk more about credit triggers, but I think most people, most listeners know what credit triggers are. We all know credit triggers are really, really hard to convert.
David: Okay. Yes.
Jessica: The success story, the number one success story we had with launching Ava was within the first two weeks of that pilot, we had a loan in process. That was a credit trigger. The loan originator didn’t have to do anything. The loan originator got a direct call from Ava transferring a lead who was just sitting in their database. This was not someone the loan originator was working the trigger happened, Ava called that lead and that lead was directly transferred to the Loan originator. And when you have that wow moment with number one, a population of contacts is very difficult to convert. And within the first week, you already have a conversion. That adoption was fairly easy because we did see that success upfront.
David: Yeah. You have to do is share a story how you did, they didn’t have to work at that elite. mean, that’s a dream. I very alone officers come up, I got leads in my desk. I just make a phone call. They don’t have to do any sourcing or any of that. that’s really the power. And that’s the leverage you’re talking about with what this could do.
Jessica: Yeah, absolutely.
Mike: Yeah.
David: Yeah, Mike. Yeah.
Mike: I think I’ll add on, I’ll add on just really quick on that. think, you know, one of the things that, that Jessica and I did with her team was, you know, we, we really put in a lot of effort to obviously make sure this is all going to work. So I think a couple other things that are super important is, you know, a lot of the loan officers, some of the reluctance is a little bit like, is the AI any good? Right? Well, we give out a number for them to call, like test it yourself, have fun with it. We did an end-to-end test and Jessica, I remember there was a gentleman sitting there testing it with us and other loan officers were coming around the desk like listening and watching, right? But then the big impact is exactly what Jessica said is we went live, their phone numbers started ringing, appointments started to show up on their calendar where they just needed to start showing up. And then ultimately they were the ones who closed the deal and got those loans into process and started moving down that process.
David: At what point, Jessica, did you roll it out to everybody instead of just doing a sampling? I think this is one of the things that are pre-called. You made a decision after at least the initial testing, instead of just having a few, you rolled it out to everybody, if I recall correctly.
Jessica: We did, yeah, we rolled it out to everyone on day one, actually. The only thing we limited in our pilot was our audience pool. So we started with those credit trigger inquiries, but we rolled it to everyone.
David: So it was rolled out to everybody. So it was right from the get go. That’s good. I think that’s an important point because when you do a smaller group, if you get a negative start, then it passes through the organization. This way it’s a sample of everybody and someone’s going to have a good experience because this stuff works. really works. And so when you have that kind of response, then all of a sudden people, the naysayers have attention to go away. The success stories start coming forth.
Jessica: Absolutely right. Yeah, we were a little bit unique in that where we didn’t do a pilot with our our loan originators. We turn it on for everyone. We wanted everyone to have the opportunity. We slowly piloted who we were calling, but we moved through that even quick. would say Mike we we turned on rate alerts in September and that was really game a game changer for our our loan originators.
David: I think when I love the success you guys are ahead and I think what that’s one of the things I wanted to have you guys on is have people realize, roll this out to everybody, make everyone start seeing the success of this. One of the things questions a lot of people are having is the TCPA, which is the call the new regulation that goes into effect in March. How did you deal with that?
Jessica: Yeah, so I mean, I again I want credit total expert here because they work very closely with us and our compliance department to make sure that before we went live, everything was TCPA compliant and you know that very state by state. So Mike, I’ll let you speak more to that because I know you’ve had a lot of people with leads in multiple states and what we have to do from state to state to be compliant. But you know, the TE team did an amazing job working with us, aking sure that everything was by the book. You know, the last thing that we would ever want is for something to, you know, be against regulation. So, you know, the team did a great job and I might let you speak more to that.
Mike: Yeah, I think one of the things that we really thought about were a lot of the ability to kind of flex with the lending institutions perspective on TCPA, right? I think there’s a little bit of room for interpretation and those types of things. so total experts certainly has our perspective, but at the end of the day, we can accommodate those types of interpretations and requirements that the lending institution has. And then to Jessica’s point, like, you know, after the decision on, can this individual be contacted using this type of technology? There’s the other sides of the coin. For example, there’s TCPA allowable call hours, allowable days of the week. The example I always use is I believe it’s Utah has Pioneers Day. You can’t make calls on those days. All of that is ultimately baked in. And then to Jessica’s point, know, the regulations are really kind of driving down to the state level where there’s some where you do have to announce that it’s AI, where there’s others that it’s not, but your lending institution might just want it to announce that it’s AI. So we’ve been able to accommodate that and really kind of, again, work closely with the compliance teams to make sure that the comfort level is there at the compliance level, but then even those things that are know, hard and fast, making sure that it’s falling within those guidelines as well.
David: Could as to you and the whole total expert team, navigating the complexity of 50 states and trying to get this all worked together. mean, it’s pretty, but I think it’s another point that’s really important is that you have drawn a real bright line is you guys have your policies, but you’re not going to get involved interpreting you’re relying on the lender to do their work on that. I speak to that Mike, because I think it’s so many people can I rely on total expert to give me the guidance on this? And the answer is no, explain why.
Mike: Yeah. So, you know, I think there’s kind of two sides of the coin as, know, there are technologies. Yeah, of course. Yeah. But, you know, there are, you know, different risk tolerances, obviously, like when you’re working with a bank or a credit union, they’re going to have a different perspective than an IMB or even a broker. Right. So being able to really kind of lean on those ⁓ and then ultimately,
David: Oh, it’s two sides of the coin. That’s Morgan’s lending.
Mike: Where Total Expert really kind of draws that line is at the end of the day, leveraging AI in this technology all has to come down to data. So ultimately it’s the responsibility of the lending institution to say, well, do we have the data that is sufficient to say, yes, we can contact this individual? Is that data reflected within Total Expert? And then we ultimately leverage that to determine yes or no, because I mean, Jessica can speak to this. We disregard several contexts because we do not have sufficient data to say this individual is allowed to be using this technology.
David: Yeah. Jessica talked a little bit to the, you guys work through some of the complexity of the TCPA.
Jessica: Right, I think it all goes back to having clean data. To Mike’s point, the data, bags of clean data. so I joined Assurance just this past year and this was one of the first projects that we took on was implementing AVA into our. ⁓
David: Clean data back to that and we’ve struggled with that Jessica the industry struggles with clean data. How did you guys get through that? Who is the smart person there that hired you? They made a good call. That was a good call.
Jessica: You know, and I think one of the first things that we did before we even turned the pilot on, I know Mike and you know, the team at Total Expert, several of them, you know, we made sure that especially the population that we were targeting was clean data. And we went through that, you know, and it was a lot of work on the front end. However, we did that work on the front end that allowed us to have a larger pool of contacts, allowed us to make sure that we were doing everything from the TCPA compliance standpoint. You know, again, working very closely with our compliance department, I think that is vital for anyone looking to implement this, working so closely with your compliance department to make sure that.
David: yeah.
Jessica: you know, they’re involved in cleaning up that data and make sure that everything is going in the system accurately. Otherwise you’re not going to have accurate results on the back end.
David: it’s day. Everything Mike you’ve seen this and go ahead.
Mike: Yeah, I think another thing that’s a little bit more forward-facing, as I mentioned, we’ve excluded a lot of Assurances Pass Contact database because there was not sufficient record that this technology was used. I think something else that’s super important is while consent and those types of things have been something we’ve all thought about, specifically in the retail mortgage industry, it’s not been near high of
priority as you maybe see in like the consumer direct space, right? And as this type of technology continues to fold more and more into our retail lenders type of business, it’s becoming more more important to make sure you’re getting that express written consent logged. And then again, ultimately reflected in your system action total expert. And that’s again, working with Jessica’s team and you know, what I live and breathe all day on integrations, that’s one of the things that we’re doing a lot of work on is all these different sources where you can have this data kind of captured is ultimately reflected in TE so you can deploy this type of technology.
David: Well, it’s a big step that’s in the process starts with great clean data. How are some of the other lenders dealing with this issue, but more poorly leveraging that a platform like this?
Mike: Yeah. So one of the things that’s been super interesting to see is we’ve got a couple of customers out there who are leveraging AI sales assistant, but also kind of keeping that eye on the future. So a lot of what we’ve seen people do is run what are called consent campaigns. So all these individuals who
David: running consent campaigns. That’s an interesting concept. Yeah.
Mike: So all these individuals who, know, either you’re not sure you could use this technology or those types of things, ultimately having a campaign go out, whether it’s an email, whether it is a manual dial, which is fine, or those types of things, and encouraging them to become, you know, make sure we can let you know when there’s opportunities to save money or reduce time spent on like a refinance working with a different lender. So going through these consent campaigns to ultimately you know, do that value exchange of, I can make you aware of when these opportunities come up, but you need to allow me to do that. And then once they get that, then they can sufficiently use this technology.
David: Yeah. And I’m finding, Mike and Jessica, can opine to this, but Mike, what I’m finding is there are some people that do that very well. And then if that campaign is written by the compliance people, it sounds too legal and who would sign it? It’s, so much of the presentation and how you’re crafting the message. Jessica, how did you end up doing that so successfully to clean that up so quickly?
Jessica: Well, I mean, it’s all about marketing, right? As the director of marketing, say the law is right. Exactly, it’s all about marketing, right? How do you market this to the field first and foremost, right? Before you can even market it to your clients, your customers, you’ve got to market this to the field and have that buy-in so that they launch that consent campaign. And if they’re following up with calls, making sure, hey, I sent you that email.
David: Let the marketing department lead the charge. Yes. Good move.
Mike: Yeah.
Jessica: You know, we just want to make sure we have everything on the dotted line for you, right? And scripting that and really making sure that your field is prepared to make those calls. Because again, to your point, if the client sends an email, 90 % of those are going to go ignored. But if someone you already have a relationship with, you the loan originator to the client, is giving you a call saying, hey, I asked you to this email, I know there’s a lot of legal in here, we just want to make sure that everything’s, you know, signed on the dotted line, that we’re all good from a consent standpoint, then you’re way more likely to be hit.
David: Yes.
Jessica: That signature right to get that consent. you know handling that from a marketing standpoint, writing the scripts, making sure the email reads in a way that the consumer is going to want to read it. I would say marketing departments work very closely with your compliance department before you start a consent campaign.
David: Yeah. But if it’s done right, there’s the most consumers are going to opt in for this because it’s benefit to them. You know, it’s there and it’s the way you do it. It’s really a benefit. But I don’t want to spend a whole lot of time on that, there’s a science in that listeners. If you want to do it right, you should have a high conversion rate. If you’re not, then is your marketing department in there as well as much as they should be? I think that’s the solution.
Jessica: Excellent.
David: What are some of the best practices, Jessica, that you worked on there? And then Mike, that you’re seeing other lenders doing, talk about best practices, Jessica. Yes. Well, no, generally speaking, just this whole area when it comes to AI calling on that. mean, I think we covered the consent issue enough. Just get market department in there, get that guy. I’m thinking more of best practices and rolling this out successfully.
Jessica: Best practices for consent. Yes. Absolutely. So I think the number one thing that I think would make this more successful for loan originators, and I think this is a simple one, it’s very easy, but in practice it can be a little bit difficult, is keeping your calendar up to date, whatever calendar you use. Keeping your calendar up to date, exactly. So one of the great things, and I just want to take a step backwards and explain how this works. So I want to explain this from our seat, right? From the lender seat.
David: Yes, it comes back to data in many ways.
Jessica: So when Ava, our AI assistant, makes the call for the loan originator, it looks for that loan originator’s availability. So this is something I think is incredibly important.
David: So it’s making phone calls and talking. then caller says, yeah, I’m willing to talk to someone. That’s what we’re talking about right here.
Jessica: Yes, absolutely. So Ava is making the call. The caller says, yes, I’m interested. Sounds like I could save some money. Great. So Ava is going to try to do one of two things. It’s going to try to either directly transfer that call to the loan originator or if that loan originator is not available, Ava is going to schedule an appointment for the loan originator. I don’t know any loan originator in the world who would not want more appointment on a calendar.
David: Exactly.
Jessica: But I think a simple best practice is just making sure that calendar is kept up to date because the technology works when we work with it, right? So treating Ava, and one of the things we’ve trained our originators to do is treat Ava as your partner, as your assistant, right? Who is looking at your calendar to see if you’re available to schedule an appointment for you. It’s the same thing, even though this isn’t someone physically sitting in your office, same practice. So that is a best practice for me is making sure that your availability is accurate because the benefit to you is you are going to have meetings scheduled for you at a time when Ava, your assistant, knows that you’re available.
David: So this one, Jessica, I have a question on this and then Mike, can’t wait to get you what your other letters are doing. But for me, I learned calendar blocking a long time ago. If you look at my calendar, it is jam full because when I’m not doing a sales call or working with a client or doing a podcast like I’m doing now, I have got it filled with planning this, doing this. So how do you work around those that are really good, like I am, at calendar blocking? Which I thought was a great idea.
Jessica: No, a calendar blogging is still absolutely fantastic. I think just making sure that it shows you is free on that calendar blog, not busy. ⁓
David: There you go. So what you can have it on there, but it just show it it’s free. that’s available for Ava to go grab that time.
Jessica: Exactly. And you know, I think the best practices for loan originators are so simple. That’s the great thing about this technology is it’s not disruptive to the loan originators day. There’s really nothing they have to do differently other than maybe make sure their calendar is up to date. But you know, the things that they need to do, make sure their calendar is up to date, answer the phone. And we love to tell people, we have a little picture of Ava.
David: Good point.
Jessica: And we had sent it out to the field. It’s in your phone with this picture. This is your assistant calling you with a client on the line. Name or whatever you want to name her. Some people call it the money line, which I think you do as well. But those are the three best practices. Make sure your calendar is up to date. Answer your phone and save your AI assistant in your phone so you know that.
Mike: Yeah.
David: Yeah. Mike, get into one of some of the other parts. I got to tell a story right now. I always love stories. Mike, when I was talking to someone else and I was listening up on this and one of the big, you know, auto dealers that do use cars out there. And then you see these ones, have mega lots out there. I’m not going to, cause I don’t know if I have authorization to their name, but they’ve employed this technology some time ago. And the technology was so into when it was talking to them, to the borrower that the person bought the car talking.
Mike: Yeah.
David: To an AI agent. And it was so successful that the person appreciated the relationship they developed that they came into the store and said, I would like to talk to, and this would be Ava, was in your case, Jessica. They said, I’d to talk to Ava. And they go, and they start making up excuses. Well, she’s on a lunch break. Well, she’s, we’ll wait, we’ll do this. Finally, they had to come and go, I’m sorry, you bought a car from our computer. And it was like, are you kidding me? So I think it’s learning, Mike, how to balance this. What do we, when do we say we’re talking to a computer? Because these people really wanted to meet with their, their online, their person. And it wasn’t a real person.
Mike: Yeah, so I think a couple things there is… So first of all, think there’s two things. The first is I think consumers in general are becoming more accepting of AI being included in their day-to-day world, right? And not even just accepting of it, but expecting it, right? And expecting this type of technology. So on less than 10 % of the calls that are actually made are when AI is not announced.
David: Yeah. Yes, there.
Mike: Does the consumer ask if it’s AI? And then less than 1 % of that time, do we actually even see any frustration? More often than not, they’re just amazed by the technology or excited about it. We’ve got quite a few testimonials of consumers expressing how great it was directly to the loan officers after the fact. Yeah, 100%.
David: Well, that’s a successful campaign. That’s a successful campaign.
Mike: I think a couple of things here just to kind of talk on like the best practices and the technology itself. So as Jessica mentioned, you know, during the call, the AI sales assistant will call the loan officer to see if they’re available. So that’s something that’s super important that we had to figure out pretty fast. Jessica was like, again, these retail type loan officers aren’t just sitting by their phone all day waiting for the phone to ring. They’re out there on the street, you know, they’re meeting with people. And so what we needed to do was
Mike: About halfway through the call, the assistant will determine is this person going to want to transfer? And then if it kind of picks up on that, it’ll call the loan officer, see if they’re free. If so, that’s when the transfer would happen. So that was something we needed to do pretty quickly and we achieved on that. And then again, obviously, this is all integrated into total expert. So at the end of the call, you’re aware, was it a transfer? Was a voicemail left? Was an appointment scheduled?
David: Interesting.
Mike: And then in addition to that, the recording of the conversation is there, a little summary of what went on in the conversation. And then what I call like the unstructured data. So for example, if they are looking to buy a home, OK, where are they looking? How much do they have for a down payment? Those types of things are all reflected in total expert. So in the case that it is an appointment before the appointment, the loan officer can really go review.
David: It’s not a trail. Yeah.
Mike: Listen to the call, really get themselves prepared for that conversation with ⁓ the consumer when it comes time.
David: Yeah, there’s so many creative ways in which you could create that connection, even if you have to announce this as AI. Again, I agree with you Mike, more and more people are saying yes to AI. If you don’t think so, how many times do any of us grab our phones and I’ve got an iPhone, so I’m going, hey Siri, and you start asking questions. We’re asking it and we’re perfectly comfortable doing so. I think the people that are resisting this are the ones that are gonna be left as laggards and you don’t wanna be a laggard in this industry, which is moving, this part of the industry that’s moving so quickly. But a lot of this comes into organizational readiness. Jessica, when I look at organizational readiness, this is a big stumbling block for a lot of people. I don’t know about you, but I go jump into things. How many times have I bought something online thinking that’s a great gadget, but they fail to tell you all the things you have to do to make that gadget, that thing, that shiny object work in your organization. Talk about what you went through in organizational readiness and then Mike, what others are doing. Start with you, Jessica.
Jessica: Absolutely, absolutely. So, you know, again, this is a huge shout out to Total Expert because we were basically partners through this entire, to make sure our organization was ready, right? When we talk about the data piece, making sure that the data in the system was clean so that we knew that we could call the people who we needed to call, especially as we turn on the pilot. So making sure everyone from you know your marketing department your executive staff your loan originator everyone is ready your data is ready everything is buttoned up when you turn that but when you turn that dialer on because you’re gonna see results really fast, right? Ava starts calling her, your AI assistant, whatever they name her, Ava started calling immediately. So we needed to make sure that our organization was 100 % ready for that. Everyone was trained. Now we continue that training as the technology continues to develop. We are continuing to train our loan originators. We do a training every other Tuesday, all about Total Expert and Ava to make sure that we are really preparing, especially our field, to make this a success. you know, again, just making sure before you turn that flip that switch on that you’re buttoned up and that everyone across the organization is trained, is well versed and understand how this technology works and the benefits to the loan originator and the technology at the end of the day.
David: Mike, when we talked beforehand, there’s three primaries. It’s the executive compliance alignment, then getting the sales alignment and readiness, and then putting all the pieces together, is the journeys. Talk about what you’re seeing, some of the struggles that are out there, and then also how people are overcoming those struggles.
Mike: Yeah, so I think the one where, you know, total expert really sits and really kind of helps, you know, the people like Jessica is, okay, how are we making sure, again, executives have signed off, we’ve got a handful of loan officers excited, but how can we make this ultimately work inside a total expert? So, you know, again, kind of slicing the data in the right way to determine when it goes on. But one of the things that we’ve done a lot of work together on it’s inside of Total Expert, have what are called contact lists. So there’s a couple buttons inside of Total Expert where if I’m a loan officer, I can go in there and I can click a button to see who my AI sales assistant is working at any time. So now I know I have visibility into the opportunities that could be coming down the pipe. I know which ones, you know, the AI sales assistant maybe couldn’t get a hold of or where my appointments are or those types of things. And so a couple of things in addition to what Jessica mentioned, we’ve seen user guides put together. So what the phone number is that’s going to call me to attempt to do a transfer. How do I stop it? There are cases where the consumer contacts alone separately and wants to get rolling. OK, I’m going to have my AI sales assistant stop calling this individual. But then we’ve seen breakout sessions at sales rallies. This is the time for the year for dating those sales meetings.
David: That’s good.
Mike: We’ve seen breakouts on that and some of those we’ve even attended working on. I was on the training with the assurance team when they first rolled this out. And so really kind of just, again, visibility and ultimately just that ease of use once it is in Total Expert, I think has been extremely helpful so that the entire organization from the C-suite down to the loan officers are all ready and geared up for this to take off.
David: Yeah, and it’s also the journeys. mean, you guys have, you’ve been working on journeys for a long, time and helping lenders work on that. How does that fit into this,
Mike: Yeah, so there’s a couple of things. I think first, one of the things that we’ve seen some do are prior to the AI sales assistant, you know, reaching out via voice, sending an email, sending an SMS just to kind of let them know like, hey, this opportunity is here. I’m going to have my assistant give you a call. Right. So really kind of teeing up the conversation with the consumers. We’ve seen that done in journeys quite a bit. Inside that journeys, that is part of the that you can really manipulate the loan officer’s experience inside of TE. You know, can we put the contacts in the right view so that you can kind of work those. Some other things that we’ve done are ⁓ Jessica like those user notifications. So when my AI sales assistant does schedule an appointment, we send a notification to the loan officer making them aware that, this is coming up. But yeah, journeys have been the driving factor here, know, listening for those opportunities and really orchestrating all the pieces that it takes to ultimately make this successful. It’s not just making the call, it’s manipulating the law and officer’s experience in TE, it’s making them aware of things happening, and it’s warming up these contacts before the call even happens.
David: And there’s a lot of science and art that goes in as a combined effort. And that’s where people like Jessica play such a big role in this thing. Jessica, kudos to you guys for how you guys have put that together. But one of the things I enjoyed about your story, Jessica, first of all, when you have people that are not adopting it, you have resistance. But then there comes a point where it’s a tipping point. Everyone flips over and goes, oh my gosh, this is gonna the most amazing thing. Get it done, get it done now. So you really pushed Total Expert. Talk about how you did that.
David: I chuckled because Mike was saying, yeah, she pushed us. Tell us about that.
Jessica: Oh yes, absolutely. And again, once again, kudos to that team because we did when we hit the ground running, we moved fast. think once that first, again, we started out with some resistance that first within two weeks, that first lung got in process and a bunch of eyes open and they were like, Whoa, I mean, I want to do this now. the TE team, again, we were meeting weekly, sometimes multiple times a week to make sure that this was
David: Whoa, I want that too.
Jessica: Running smoothly, you know, that every Loan originator was, you know, getting the opportunities and that we were over communicating. And I want to bring up what Mike said, you know, with the journeys and the technology in the back end, the stuff that the Loan originator doesn’t see, right? Our goal is to make it easy. There are three, we talked about, you know, best practices. There are three best practices for that Loan originator, but on our end, you know, the marketing department working with Total Expert, making sure that in the back end the Loan originator is getting those key communications and knows exactly who is being worked, when they’re being worked, did they fall off the journey? And now that’s a point where that Loan originator may reach out directly, right? So building that communication was really where we hit the ground running with the TE team to make sure that we were over-communicating to the Loan originator that they…
David: That’s good. That’s really important point. Over-communicating and having them hear. One thing is speaking. In other words, making sure they’re hearing it is another thing. There’s just so much. mean, we, we could go on and on about this. as we wrap this up, I want to get Mike, you want to add anything to that? You were pushed. I love it.
Jessica: This is awesome.
Mike: Yeah, no, think just because it’s one of my favorite things, one of the data points to say is, from the time that Jessica and I first spoke to where we went live, I think we did that about 36 days. So that’s pretty quick. Yeah. So for something that’s…
David: 36 days? Are you serious? Cause I know what goes into the making of that sausage. That’s not easy.
Mike: Exactly. So, you know, that was really quick. like, again, I think it was a lot of fun and like, David, what I told you.
David: Whoa! Do we want to put that on the podcast because that created a new level of expectation.
Jessica: It’s not even an expectation.
Mike: Well, yeah, but a lot of that, kudos to the assurance team on ultimately making that happen.
David: Yeah, that’s why we talked about organizational readiness. It’s so important.
Mike: And I think, you know, when, when I take a step back and look at, know, on the vendor side with just innovation and changes to technology, think those are a couple of things that are super important, not just for this, but just in, that, that, you know, you’re, you’re offering in general are the two things that are going to really start setting people apart are decisiveness and then that speed. Right. So, you know, I think no longer can we go and spend, you know, a year thinking about what AI ought to look like and rolling it out. we, you know, we, move pretty quick on this and, I, but I think you have to just because the pace of change is, is happening so quickly anymore.
David: Yeah. And I want to give a shout out to Joel. He has had a vision for this. He has a passion for it. like few, know, and he’s been very smart. It’s great to have a passion, but if you don’t hire the right people. so they hired the fixer and this Mike is Russell does, does just amazing job. I could go on and on. We could talk a lot about this as we wrap this up. I want to talk about the conference because once again, that conference was so good.
Mike: Yeah, that’s right.
David: And, setting high expectations to work. And we have a better conference. I’m high expectations than in Denver, the mile high city. was a great place, great setting, but what are some of the takeaways, Jessica, you had from this conference?
Jessica: Absolutely. mean, this is my fourth year attending Accelerate with Total Experts. honestly, I honestly say this was one of the most exciting accelerates that I’ve been to. I think because of all of the conversation about AI and, it wasn’t just session that we talked about this. wouldn’t say the majority of the sessions talked about
David: I think mine too. Yes.
Jessica: The implementation of AI, where this is going, how, know, total expert has done a great job of being on the front end of this technology and helping loan originators and really focusing on the mortgage industry, right? You have a lot of AI technologies out there that are trying to hit so many industries and the mortgage industry is so unique. And I think having that partner who understands the regulatory aspect, you know, the compliance pieces.
David: Yes, and it respects it. respects it. Not only understands it, but truly respects it.
Jessica: Respects them and knows what they need to do to set up on the back end to make sure the loan originator is successful to make sure that loan originator only has to have three best practices that takes a ton of work. So the conference was so eye opening for me as someone who was part of the pilot to hear others experiences talk to other people who are looking to implement this technology and just see the direction that total expert is taking AI in the mortgage space was just fascinating. It was one of my favorite conference so far and
Mike: Yeah.
Jessica: And Denver didn’t hurt anything.
David: Yeah.
Mike: Yeah.
David: Yeah. And being high other than the altitude, I’m used to that. So good.
Jessica: What?
Mike: Yeah. So I do want to give a shout out again, like our events team does an incredible job. Tracy and Becca like getting everybody together. And yeah, this was one of the best ones. I’ve always really liked the example. Right. Yeah.
David: Yes, amazing. Everyone’s every time I leave one. go, that’s what’s the best one. That was the best. How do you keep raising the bar? Where’s it going to?
Mike: Well, and that’s the one thing, like to Jessica’s point, what I really like about the Total Expert Conference is it’s almost like a user group, right? Like even though at the end of the day, you know, we’re all kind of ultimately competitors or those types of things, but everybody is more than happy and willing to share their experiences, their best practice as it relates to leveraging Total Expert. And that’s one thing I’ve always really enjoyed about it. It’s there’s a lot of idea sharing and again.
David: Through collaboration. Yeah. Collaborative nature of spirit there.
Mike: Collaboration and you know, we’ll go up there and we’ll say what we’re hearing in the market and what we’re doing to kind of help that. But ultimately it comes down to the creativity from the people like Jessica on being able to use our platform to execute on those strategies.
David: It’s really good from your perspective, from a total expert perspective inside, you reflect over the conference, what would be your perspective from an insider looking at the rest of us enjoying this conference.
Mike: A lot of the talk internally since Denver here just over a month ago has, you know, we’ve got our new, he’s been here for over a year, but Pete Carnes, our Chief Product Officer, he and I, you know, talk a lot about this along with the rest of the product and engineering team is the things that we see from when we’re talking to our customers face to face is you all, Jessica, want us to be successful in such a bad way, right? Like you’re really pulling us and pushing us to ultimately, you know, take those next steps, right? So I think, you know, hearing about how, you know, not just the problems that loan officers have, but the people like in the marketing type roles, the executive roles on how we can ultimately execute on those, there’s no shortage of things to be done.
David: That’s true.
Mike: Just like any product person would tell you, we got to kind of ruthlessly prioritize sometimes. But at the end of the day, it’s really being able to understand and hear directly from our customers what’s the most important and really pushing us to take those steps in order to do that. again, it’s alignment, but then it’s ultimately decisiveness and speed of execution are the most important things.
David: Yeah. What’s the name of your new boss again? Pete Karnes. I enjoyed meeting him. You pulled me aside. We were, it was an after hour. all in the bar and I’m heading out to have a dinner. And you pulled me aside. I was really impressed with him because you picked up from Pete when you’re talking to him, you’re a veteran in the industry. You’re a veteran in this. You work with the veterans like Jessica, but he had a hunger to learn and he was such an eagerness and he is successful. He has got a great track record. That impressed me that the guy’s
Mike: Yeah, Pete Carnes. Yep.
David: Had that level of success is showing this much enthusiasm and excitement for the, and it was the end of the conference. So he was genuinely excited.
Mike: Yeah, yeah, and I think that’s one of the things that’s really, like you mentioned, Joe’s vision and excitement around this and that’s shared by Pete. I think there’s a lot of exciting times to come and I couldn’t be more anxious to see what the future holds.
David: Yeah. Joe is so passionate about this. It’s like lead follower, get the hell out of the way kind of thing. And boy, mean, there’s Joe has got a, he’s on a mission. It’s like, when you find someone that’s, that’s armored up and ready to take on and go ahead, Joe has got it. must, I mean, I’ve always been impressed Joe’s presentation, but there was a, there was a fighting spirit, not that he’s fighting anyone else, but a fighting spirit to push total expert further into the future because it’s changing rapidly. Mike, Jessica, thanks so much for being here. What a joy. love Jessica. Meeting you is delightful. Mike, it’s so always so fun to get back with you. I love our conversations every time we get a chance to do it. And thanks for telling Jessica she needed to be on here with us today.
Jessica: Well, thank you so much. Thanks for sharing your space, Mike. And thank you, David, for having us on.
Mike: of course. Thank you both. Appreciate you.
David: You both appreciate you both very much.
Important Links
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