Editor's note: This brief was summarised by The Property AI Newsroom from a report by Mortgage Strategy. Read the original article for full details.
Automation tool rejected despite strong results
Mortgage Strategy's Tech Watch column describes a firm that trialled a document-handling tool for six weeks. The tool read incoming statements, identified what was missing, chased the client and packaged the case, getting roughly four cases in five all the way through, with the fifth escalated to a person. The firm nonetheless declined to buy the tool, with the verdict that it was "not reliable enough".
The columnist, who says they have heard versions of this episode "a dozen times now", calls this the most expensive mistake in the market at present: a sound purchase refused rather than a bad one made.
Compare the tool to a new hire
The article asks readers to apply the same test to a person: an administrator hired who, six weeks in, handles most of what lands on their desk and escalates only the awkward cases. That would be called a good start, not a failed hire. Firms, the column suggests, are holding automation to a standard of perfection they would never apply to staff.
Part of the problem, the author writes, is that these tools get filed under "technology", inviting macro questions — where it is going, what it means for the industry — which are useless when deciding whether to spend a few hundred pounds a month. The purchase is closer to an outsourced service than to software: like outsourcing book-keeping, firms should simply ask what it costs, what quality returns and how much of their week they get back.
Two numbers to decide by
The columnist says the decision comes down to arithmetic based on two numbers. The first is the baseline: pick the task the team repeats most and cost it honestly — hours per case, days lost waiting on a client, enquiries that went quiet. The second is the escalation rate and what is in the escalated cases. A fifth of work coming back to a human is a filter; the test is whether those are genuinely judgement cases or an arbitrary slice with no pattern.
Keep people in the loop
The column stresses this does not apply to advice: reading a client's circumstances, structuring a case and knowing which lender will take it "was always the value". Automate the admin around the decision, keep a person able to step into any case, and ensure the audit trail shows who did what. As the article concludes: be relaxed about the 80%, be immovable about the rest.
Source: Mortgage Strategy