Brokers say virtual meetings are "here to stay" as clients opt for convenience and efficiency
Remote client meetings, once a necessity during the COVID-19 pandemic, have now become a fixture for UK mortgage brokers. Both advisers and clients increasingly favour online or telephone appointments, drawn by the promise of greater efficiency and flexibility over the traditional face-to-face approach.
“A lot of people prefer to just provide their documents, have a chat for maybe an hour or so over the phone or over email even, and just kind of do it that way,” said Michelle Lawson (pictured top left), mortgage advisor and director at Lawson Financial. “We’re definitely seeing that trend. And actually, I’m preferring it, to be fair.”
Lawson noted that the shift was already underway even before the pandemic, but has now become standard practice.
Elliott Benson (pictured top right), broker and owner of Sett Mortgages, observed a similar trend. “There was just a massive shift straight after lockdown where literally pretty much everything was remote, and that sort of fed through the next few years as well, where people are much more comfortable with telephone, Zoom, Teams,” he said.
“The first thing that people generally say when they suggest an appointment is, is it Teams or is it Zoom? Face to face is almost a thing of the past, I would say.”
According to both Lawson and Benson, the adoption of digital tools for document signing and identity verification has streamlined processes.
“There are so many different ways of interacting with the client now, such as electronic ID verification,” Benson said. “All the systems that I use have that inbuilt. You’ve got things like screen sharing software where you can talk a client through a document while they’re watching what you do.
“All these things have just improved with time, which means that with the use of DocuSign and things like that, you can get a client through a whole process remotely if necessary, and very quickly as well.”
Lawson also highlighted efforts to further reduce administrative burdens. “We’re almost kind of having one document that they have to sign, which is like a one-size-fits-all to say that they’ve had all of the documents and they agree with all of them as one signature,” she said.
Despite the efficiency gains, brokers remain alert to potential risks, particularly around fraud. Lawson recounted a case where a client’s secretary signed a document via DocuSign while the client was abroad, exposing the limitations of remote verification.
Considering the existence of such limitations, Benson emphasised the importance of robust internal checks: “Everything that I get from a client, I check it over,” he said. “It’s then checked a further two times by other members of staff as well. It’s very difficult to not notice something that should be noticed because you’ve got three separate people looking over it. I’m first line, then you’ve got somebody else and somebody else. It’s just a process that I follow.”
Lawson and Benson agree that remote meetings are likely to remain the preferred means of broker-client meetings. “Remote’s here to stay,” said Lawson. “I don’t think we plan on changing. I think it’s actually a lot more efficient because we're not wasting time, which is dead time, travel time when you’re going from office to appointment.”
Benson added, “I think remote’s definitely here to stay. I always give the client the choice: Do you want a face to face meeting? Would you prefer a virtual meeting? Ninety percent of the time it’s a virtual meeting that they would prefer. Of every 10 virtual meetings I do, probably eight of them will be telephone. It’s quite rare that someone requests a face-to-face meeting now.”
Looking ahead, both brokers see technology continuing to shape the client experience, but not the core role of the broker. “Even with the advent of AI, the role of a broker is still going to be there to make sure the client’s experience is as easy as possible and that they’re getting the cheap deal based on their circumstances, based on the knowledge of the lenders that we’ve got. The core will never change,” Benson said.
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