Distributed retail lending is a building block for financial institutions to nurture strong relationships with their borrowers. These strong relationships necessitate proactive communication and local market familiarity. ServiceLink is committed to serving distributed retail branches and providing a local feel and expertise, with all the advantages of a national centralized provider – like an expansive panel of experienced appraisers.

The services ServiceLink provides go beyond meeting the need for a local feel and can offer substantial benefits for lenders and borrowers alike. “ServiceLink provides the strength and scalability of an industry leader,” says Erin Reed, vice president, origination valuations with ServiceLink. “We can offer those benefits with a local touch because of our hands-on approach to serving the loan officer and the consumer.”

Here are six things to focus on when selecting an appraisal partner for your distributed retail business:

1: A full suite of appraisal solutions

ServiceLink offers lenders a suite of home valuation solutions with the industry’s largest and most knowledgeable appraiser network. Whether for purchase, refinance or home equity, ServiceLink uses our proprietary technology, EXOS® Valuations, to increase efficiencies in every step of the process.  

2: A commitment to panel management

Our dedicated team manages appraiser panels for you to help improve process efficiencies. Each client will have a dedicated team that offers clear and consistent communication to them, so they are in the loop every step of the way. Our panel of appraisals also follow a strict quality control process and are motivated to perform well due to regular performance evaluations.

3: Dedicated service team  

Our appraisal process offers complete transparency and the ability to communicate directly through our LOS platforms. Once onboarded with ServiceLink, lenders are assigned a ServiceLink customer service team dedicated to them. This means that the same ServiceLink employees who are familiar with the lender’s workflow will be ensuring the lender and the borrower are both in good hands and committed to giving quick response times. And it means that regardless of where the property in question is located, the lender will work with the same consistent team who is focused on their business and is in constant communication to ensure full transparency every step of the way. “At ServiceLink, all of our transactions get a white-glove experience,” says Antonio Little, vice president, national sales manager with ServiceLink. “Our dedicated team is constantly checking reporting, proactively looking for alerts and identifying when they need to jump in to offer additional support.”

4: Real-time scheduling to help you meet your turn time goals

With our real-time scheduling platform, you will never miss a step. When a lender orders an appraisal, the borrower receives an email and a text to schedule their appraisal appointment. If the borrower isn’t comfortable with scheduling digitally, we have a scheduling team who calls the point of contact to schedule the appraisal. Our goal is to make the appraisal step in lending easy and seamless for the borrower so they can focus on the remaining steps of their mortgage. This also allows the consumer to meet their appraiser instantly and gives them information to increase their comfort, like their photo, name, contact information and make and model of the appraiser’s car. This process dramatically reduces turn times by eliminating the back and forth associated with scheduling, while also increasing transparency in the process.

5: Aggressive milestone management and quality control

ServiceLink’s management and service team is focused on our clients’ business and dedicated to delivering underwriter-ready appraisals. We consistently monitor service levels across markets to ensure we’re meeting or exceeding our clients’ expectations. “At ServiceLink, our EXOS® technology has been built to provide high-level milestone notifications. So the lender is always going to know what’s going on with their transactions,” says Little.

Our goal is to deliver underwriter-ready appraisals every time – facilitated by our sophisticated quality control platform, which involves more than 2,000 customizable rules that enable us to meet individual lender requirements, in addition to review of the report by one of our qualified quality control personnel.

6: A focus on compliance

Having a partner who offers a strong focus on compliance is essential. One of the strongest benefits ServiceLink brings to the table is a large compliance team dedicated to valuation solutions, which is supported by additional legal, risk and audit teams within ServiceLink. We have a robust compliance team within our valuation department that serves as a first line of defense and takes additional stress off you. This team tracks all requirements, implements process changes and controls in response to regulatory changes, trains staff, oversees higher-risk processes and ensures adherence to requirements through monitoring and testing. They’re backed by additional control groups that serve as additional lines of defense, performing audits, identifying risks and ensuring any gaps are remediated to keep our clients safely in compliance.  

Read more about ServiceLink’s commitment to compliance here.

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