Mortgage Wholesaler Migrates from Insellerate & 8x8 to HubSpot & Aircall
INTRODUCTION Mortgage Wholesaler reinvents sales & marketing efforts with HubSpot CRM Platform.
Smartfi Home Loans is a reverse mortgage wholesale lender with over 110 years of collective reverse mortgage experience. They offer a host of innovative products, pricing and training services to brokers looking to expand their product offering to clients.
Our evaluation process found that they were looking for an improved set of capabilities for their sales and marketing teams. Smartfi was evaluating HubSpot, Salesforce, and industry-specific solutions Mortgage iQ and OptifiNow.
Our sales team worked hand-in-hand with HubSpot throughout the process, working through a series of discovery, assessment, software demonstrations, and proposal calls. We demonstrated HubSpot's ability to truly solve for all their needs, with the power of HubSpot's ability to be crafted perfectly to their business workflow being the ultimate deciding factor. Smartfi would move forward with HubSpot's CRM Platform.
CHALLENGE Limited functionality and unreliable data sync.
Smartfi was suffering from a host of challenges that had developed into frustration. They were looking for help solving for a list of priorities and concerns.
- They had to be out of their current CRM within 30-days
- The existing integration between QuantumReverse and Insellerate wasn't functioning properly
- Marketing was unable to send emails on behalf of Loan Officers
- They had the internal resources to do some heavy lifting, but none of them were familiar with the inner workings of HubSpot
- They had a series of email templates that needed to be recreated
- Poor adoption, capabilities, and team performance in their current CRM
Our team would stand alongside the Smartfi team, in a prioritized implementation plan. We would be responsible for onboarding, data migration, configuring HubSpot's Marketing and Sales HUBS to meet their requirements, and training the team how to operate. The Smartfi team would be responsible for recreating priority marketing assets that currently resided in Insellerate. We would work hand-in-hand with their IT team to integrate HubSpot with their Loan Origination System, QuantumReverse.
SOLUTION Onboarding, implementation, & integration.
Onboarding Enterprise HubSpot
We have a dedicated team for HubSpot Onboarding and offer a host of services to help new customers activate and begin leveraging their new HubSpot licenses quickly. Our HubSpot Success Managers are Master Training Certified by HubSpot, ensuring they have a well-rounded and complete understanding of the entire HubSpot Suite. We introduced the Smartfi team to our dedicated HubSpot Success Manager, Brittany St. Pierre, and set forth completing the following steps.
Step 1: Global License Configuration: We offer to pick up all the initial settings and global configuration on new portals. We started with a workbook to ensure we had the proper branding elements, then jumped in to set up the Marketing and Sales Pro features to ensure their instance was ready for customization.
Step 2: HubSpot Software Training: We held a series of training calls to teach team members how operate inside HubSpot Marketing and Sales Pro. We focused the training on their top priorities. For the sales team, we focused on general CRM orientation and activation of the sales productivity tools. Marketing trainings consisted of how to rebuild all of their assets from Insellerate. Email automation, database segmentation, landing pages, forms, and campaign tracking were all featured to ensure their team could get off and running. This training element fulfilled the requirements by HubSpot to allow for waiving their onboarding consulting fees.
HubSpot Configuration
Our goal for configuration was to craft HubSpot to meet Smartfi's workflow. We start this process with discovery. We defined the configuration requirements through a series of calls and internal architecture strategy sessions.
- Consult on business goals and priorities
- Discuss the handoffs from marketing to sales
- Discuss best practices around system alignment
- Strategic review with requirements for sign-off
Marketing Hub configuration highlights:
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Set up marketing email settings for CAN-SPAM compliance
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Configure email subscription types
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Imported marketing opt-out lists
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Connected SmartFi's social accounts
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Connected ad tools with Google Ads
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Configured custom views for marketing
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Created up web forms for quick wins and embedded on the website
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Created custom properties for lead qualifications
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Created automation for marketing/non-marketing contacts
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Defined Lifecycle Stages based on qualification parameters
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Created external email workflows for lead nurturing
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Created internal workflows to help automate the team’s processes
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Used custom & native properties to build smart lists for database segmentation
CRM configuration highlights:
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Customized the sales pipeline and deal stages to match the sales process
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Created default and required custom properties for use at each record type
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Configured CRM record types for contacts/companies/deals
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Created custom contact and company views to segment leads
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Configured basic lead routing and assignment
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Created deal notification workflow for Loan Officers
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Created internal sales process automation through workflows
QuantumReverse to HubSpot Integration
Smartfi leverages QuantumReverse for its Loan Origination System (LOS). They knew integrating data to support their Loan Officers would be a critical step in their ability to realize value and usability in the CRM. The ability to drive loan detail from their LOS into deal records was critical to success.
We worked directly with Smartfi's IT team to complete the synchronization of necessary loan data into HubSpot.
- Step 1: Loan Process Mapping. As we kicked off the integration, we mapped the flow of the loan application process, accounting for multiple loans, borrowers, and the phases of the loan application process in QuantumReverse.
- Step 2: Field Mapping. Once we understood the loan process, we mapped the data points necessary to support integration - identifying which object those fields should be mapped to. This mapping accounted for different types of borrowers and loan day to closing a loan.
- Step 3: Field Configuration. In HubSpot, fields, workflows, and process changes had to be configured to support the data integration.
- Step 4: Application Development. The IT team completed the API work. The organizaton was already driving loan data into their SQL database, so they chose to route loan data already living in SQL into HubSpot. With the necessary destination fields in place in HubSpot, they wrote the rules for object sync per the specifications.
- Contact information mapped to Contacts in HubSpot
- Company information mapped into Companies in HubSpot
- Loan information mapped to Deals in HubSpot
- Step 5: Validation and Testing. As IT progressed through the data sync, our team validated that HubSpot accurately matched the current status across the loan and borrowers.
Loan Officer Training
The final step in the project was to roll out HubSpot to the Loan Officers. We've adopted their preferred method of Change Management, ADKAR. We customized the LO training curriculum to build awareness, create desire, develop knowledge, foster ability, and reinforce change and adoption. We accomplished these goals through a 3-step process:
- Step 1: Sales HUB Tour: We kicked things off with a full HUB tour to familiarize them with all elements of the Sales Hub.
- Step 2: Role-Based Training: Our next step was to host two tailored training sessions with Loan Officers to train on adoption priorities, answer questions, and provide support. Each session included preparation assignments, including content to cover, resources, and desired impact. Aligning team training based on priorities and feedback is key to successful adoption, which is why we customize training sessions for impact.
- Step 3: Documentation: We were also careful to document the marketing procedures for future access. We created a library of training resources for refreshers, reference, and new employee onboarding. All documentation and training videos were labeled and filed inside their HubSpot file manager for fast reference.
Instrumental Group went above and beyond for us, doing the work we needed to get our HubSpot instance up and running in just a couple months. They exceeded our scope of work and moved things around to really meet our needs. The team did an excellent job in learning our industry, flushing out HubSpot's purpose for us, our needs and wants, our business model, etc., and got us off the ground quickly. Everyone from Instrumental Group was very knowledgeable, quick to be of assistance, and a joy to work with and talk to.
NEXT STEP An extra initiative, integrated calling with Aircall.
As the Smartfi team began using HubSpot it was clear that they would need a better solution for its phone system. They were using 8x8 and hoped to explore another integration to prevent call minute fees with HubSpot. As we evaluated options it was clear that 8x8 didn't have a workable integration option.
Instrumental Group knew Aircall could be a great solution, as we've been resell and implementation partners for several years and they have an amazing native integration with HubSpot. We brought the solution to Smartfi, and introduced the Aircall team to work through scoping and demonstration.
At the time this article was written, Smartfi had contracted with Aircall and had begun onboarding. With a fully integrated marketing and sales system built in HubSpot and supported by integrated loan data and phone communication system, Smartfi's future is bright. Their marketing and sales teams have obtained a new level of streamlined communication capabilities sure to help them increase velocity and performance.