Online home loan marketplace Joust has made changes to its model to improve broker lead quality and is scaling its operations to include more brokers as demand for loan refinancing spikes.
Joust is an online home loan marketplace that offers two unique tools for consumers shopping for loans, both of which provide mortgage brokers with qualified consumer profiles who of those have home loan needs.
An “instant match” product immediately matches the consumer with a broker and up to three home loan deals based on 12 data points from the consumer and the broker’s profile preferences.
Joust also has Australia’s only online home loan auction solution that allows lenders and brokers to bid for a consumer’s business based on a 24-data point profile, and then awards them with the consumer’s full profile if the consumer declares them the winner of the auction.
Joust chief revenue officer Anny Le Wilson (pictured above) said Joust was committed to delivering best-in-class innovation to the industry, while the new Joust Connect model was helping evolve the industry even further by providing brokers with warm transfers to consumers, in real time over the phone.
“We now have an internal team that, once a prospect is acquired, we call that consumer and qualify them with additional questions ensuring they are a good fit for the broker to speak with,” Le Wilson said.
“Our team vets the consumer to ensure they meet certain criteria, so if for some reason they have no interest in engaging with a broker at that time, for example, they are not passed on.”
Once a customer has satisfied Joust’s qualification criteria, including confirming they want to speak to a broker, then the consumer will be passed on to a broker – in real time.
Because Joust has access to the calendars of the brokers it signs up, it is able to either transfer the customer directly to the broker, or book in an appointment time that suits both parties.
“There is no other product like this in the market – and the feedback from our initial testing has been absolutely phenomenal,” Le Wilson said.
“We are eliminating the industry problem around lead quality, and helping drive better outcomes for customers and brokers based on the rich data and qualification process we provide.
“We are also improving broker productivity by ensuring brokers only speak to customers who have signalled the intent of wanting to speak to a broker, at a time that suits them both.”
Joust recently completed an 18-month pilot of the new lead qualification model with a major aggregator, in which it saw lead volumes and revenues increase for the brokers participating.
“The aggregator we worked with had a large number of brokers who were fighting over these leads because they were pre-qualified, vetted, and wanted to speak to a broker,” Le Wilson said.
Scaling the business to cater for inbound lead growth
Joust has also changed its marketing activity to include above-the-line spend over the last 12 months, with TV, billboards, print magazines and podcasts, in addition to digital channels.
As well as further contributing to lead quality, this has combined with the market climate and refinancing demand to result in a significant rise in enquires coming through to the Joust platform.
“We think we’re in a window of time where brokers should be making hay while the sun shines, so to speak,” Le Wilson said. “There is a significant volume of consumers coming through to the point where we are looking to bring on more brokers to ensure those consumers’ needs are fulfilled.”
“We are an inclusive platform looking to partner with brokers who have shared values and want the same outcomes for consumers and who want to grow their brokerage business as well. We’ll also be looking to partner with aggregators.”
Joust said that it would focus on established brokers rather than new-to-industry brokers.
“Brokers have been saying their organic leads and leads from referral partners have slowed down in the current market, and there are challenges with things like serviceability levels,” said Le Wilson.
“But the demand is unequivocally still there based on the data we have seen coming through, and we think we can help brokers find these leads and build their businesses.”
What are you managing to find good quality leads in the current market? Share your thoughts or stories on this topic in the comments section below.
