Earlier this month, a group of us from STRATMOR found ourselves sitting in an auditorium in New York, surrounded by chefs, hoteliers, and entrepreneurs — not exactly the usual mortgage crowd. We were at the Welcome Conference, listening to people like Adam Grant, Rory Sutherland, and Jesse Cole (the guy behind the Savannah Bananas baseball team) talk about hospitality.
What struck me was how broad the audience was — leaders from tech, retail, healthcare, even banking. But when we looked around, we realized almost no one was there from mortgage. And that felt odd. Because if there’s one business where people should feel cared for, it’s ours.
Think about it: buying or refinancing a home is a huge moment — emotional, stressful, and deeply personal. Yet too often, the experience is confusing, stressful, and purely transactional. We’ve all seen it.
That’s why this month’s InFocus article is so important. It’s called “Welcome to the Era of Hospitality: Why Mortgage Needs a Systematized, Human-Centered Redesign Now.” In it, we make the case that it’s time to shift our focus from viewing mortgages as mere transactions to treating the borrower journey as a relationship we design with care, consistency, and emotion.
Mike Seminari’s latest Customer Experience Tip, “Guide to Greatness: What Top CX Leaders Do Differently,” follows the same vein. In the article, Mike reminds us that great customer experience doesn’t come from grand gestures alone — it comes from embedding the right habits. He talks about how top CX leaders translate vision into everyday behavior through clear norms, feedback loops, and coaching. That’s exactly the kind of disciplined system that brings the “smile over sale” philosophy off the stage and into your lending operation.
Thank you for joining us for the September Insights Report. Your success remains our top priority, and we are here to support you every step of the way. STRATMOR provides a wide range of advisory services to facilitate, optimize and address the challenges lenders are facing today, including strategy design and implementation, financial benchmarking and performance, process review and improvement, maximizing servicing assets, optimizing your customer experience initiatives to get more business, technology procurement and implementation, M&A and strategic options, and much more. STRATMOR’s advisory team is available now to discuss these services. Please contact us to learn more.
Buying or refinancing a home is among life’s most emotional, stressful, and consequential financial experiences. Yet the process is often transactional, confusing, or simply forgettable. Too often, borrowers walk away feeling stressed, confused, and frustrated instead of cared for.
Our question this month: What do great CX leaders do differently—and how can mortgage lenders follow their lead?
Registration for STRATMOR’s next Consumer Direct Workshop is now open. Join us in Charlotte, North Carolina, November 5-6, 2025.
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Secret shopping is the best way for lenders to remove the disconnection between perception and reality and pave the way for meaningful improvements in customer experience.
In last month’s article, “Checkmate or Checkpoint? Rethinking the Role of Mortgage Servicing,” we challenged the traditional view of mortgage servicing as a passive, back-office function, and explored how servicing is becoming a strategic lever for borrower engagement, operational strength, and long-term growth. In this follow-up article, we shift from strategy to execution: how can servicers turn that strategy into action amid rising digital expectations, regulatory flux, and MSR volatility?
For years, servicing has been treated like a pawn on the mortgage lending chessboard—important, but largely seen as a back-office function. In 2025, the board has shifted. Servicing is no longer stuck on the back rank but has moved from the sidelines to center stage, evolving into a queen-like force—versatile, strategic, and capable of driving meaningful advantage.
Lenders today are not simply reacting to interest rate volatility, regulatory pressure, and changing borrower behavior, they’re making calculated, forward-thinking moves to turn servicing into a lever for growth, loyalty, and operational strength. Many are starting to see servicing not just as a cost center, but as a position of strength—one that can shape the outcome of the entire game.
What’s driving this shift? Data and advisory insight are at the core. Today’s servicing challenges are complex and interconnected: compliance, borrower experience, and portfolio performance are no longer siloed. Instead, they require coordinated strategies powered by analytics and enhanced by the right partnerships.
This article explores how mortgage servicing is evolving, the rise of subservicing, the challenges lenders face, and the strategic moves that can turn servicing into a competitive strategic advantage. We’ll also share how STRATMOR Group is helping banks and lenders across the country make smarter moves that align servicing with their broader goals.
I spend a lot of time in our nation’s capital for various reasons, not the least of which is spending time with my 99-year-old dad. The irony is that I am a hard-working guy living in Florida, and my father is a retired man still living my hometown. Actually, to be clear, I grew up in Northern Virginia – if you know the area, you will understand why that distinction is important. (Apologies to my friends who are D.C. or Maryland residents and did not embrace living in the Commonwealth). So, why did I grow up in the D.C. area? Because that is where my father worked for the government for 40 years after a stint in the Navy during World War II and the Korean war. He is truly a member of the greatest generation, and I am just the son who reaped the rewards of his hard work and sacrifice. But this also explains why the time I spend in D.C. is some of my favorite work time, and why I believe we need to be active in what happens with our government and how it impacts our industry.
My most recent trip spanned several weeks and included a productive series of meetings—including the MBA National Advocacy Conference and three MBA and STRATMOR Peer Group Roundtable (PGR) meetings. During those events—and really over the past few months—several key themes have started to surface across our industry. In a market that’s shifting fast on everything from federal policy to tech disruption, this is a pivotal moment for lenders to reassess their strategy.
In this article, we’ll look at four core themes that should be on every lender’s radar right now, along with strategic actions you can take to navigate uncertainty, improve profitability, and position your business for what comes next.
Feel free to reach out with any questions or needs we might be able to help with.
