Playbook, mortgage broker
The address on the site is rarely the address anybody needs
This looks like the simplest question on the site and it is usually not the question being asked. Very little of a mortgage case requires anybody to be in a room together: the conversation works on a call, the documents go through a portal, and the signing that used to justify a journey mostly does not any more. So somebody asking where the office is is generally asking whether they have to come in, whether they can do this from where they live, or what to do with a document they are holding and do not want to put in the post.
Why this is not the general answer
The handling pattern for location and parking holds across every trade. What follows is the part that does not.
- Most of an adviser's work runs by phone or video with documents uploaded, so the honest answer to where the office is often begins by saying that a visit is not needed, which saves somebody a journey across a county.
- The reason to come in has shifted from delivering paperwork to wanting reassurance, and a firm that understands that answers the emotional question rather than giving directions.
- Where a firm does see clients, the appointment is a long fact find and a joint applicant is usually expected, so parking for the best part of two hours is a different question from parking to drop something off.
- Halfway through a case the address somebody actually wants is the conveyancer's or the lender's, and the broker's site is simply where they came looking for it, which the material should anticipate.
How it arrives
- do i actually have to come into the office
- can we do the whole thing over video
- where do i send my original documents
- is there parking near your office
- will an adviser come out to us at home
- do both of us need to be on the appointment
What has to be indexed for this to work
| How appointments are actually held, said before the address | Phone, video or in person, and which is the default. Put it above the location details, because the visitor's real question is whether the address matters at all and answering that first is what saves the journey. |
|---|---|
| The office details, for the minority who come | Getting there, parking and how long an appointment runs. Time the parking advice to the length of a fact find rather than to a quick visit, since that is what people get wrong when they arrive. |
| What to do with an original document | Whether the firm wants originals at all, what it accepts as a scan or a photograph, and where anything physical should go. Applicants worry about posting identity documents and will hold a case up rather than risk it. |
| Who needs to attend when there are two applicants | Whether both are expected, whether they can join separately, and what happens when one of them cannot make it. Joint cases stall on this more than on anything else in the diary. |
The reply
You almost certainly do not need to come in. Most of our appointments run by phone or video, and documents are uploaded rather than brought in, so the whole thing can be done from home [1]. If you would rather come to the office, the details and the parking are here, and it is worth allowing a good while because a first appointment is a long conversation [2]. Where there are two of you, we would usually want both on the call. I cannot see any appointment, and I cannot work out what you could borrow before one happens. Leave your name and an email and we will arrange a time that suits.
The first sentence removes the journey, which is what the visitor came to find out even when they asked for an address. Warning about the length is more useful than directions, because arriving with forty minutes of parking is the failure people actually experience. The refusal is short and points at the appointment rather than dwelling on what cannot be done.
Where it stops
The trigger. The visitor asks whether an adviser will travel to them, asks where to send an original document the firm has not published a route for, or says they cannot manage a call or a video appointment.
I would rather not guess at that one. Leave your name, your email and where you are, and somebody will come back to you with how we can arrange it.
It stops answering before it guesses, says who will pick it up, and asks for the one thing that makes a reply possible. Nothing about it reads as a dead end.
Never say this here
Out of bounds
- Never say an adviser will visit somebody at home or at a workplace unless the firm publishes that it does that.
- Never tell somebody to post an original identity document without repeating exactly what the firm wants and where it should go.
- Never confirm that somebody is expected at the office, or that an appointment exists, since the assistant can see no diary at all.
- Never describe the office as open to callers without an appointment when advisers are booked or working elsewhere.
Questions
- Nearly nobody visits us. Is this page worth having?
- It is worth having precisely because nearly nobody visits. The traffic is people checking whether they need to, and a page that says no in the first line removes a hesitation that was otherwise going to end in nothing happening.
- Can it tell somebody where their conveyancer is?
- No. It only knows what you have given it, and another firm's address is not yours to hold or to keep current. It should say it does not have that and point the person back to their own paperwork.
- People ask about coming in to sign things. What should the material say?
- Say what your process actually does now rather than what it used to do. If signing happens through the portal, say so, because the question is usually somebody assuming a trip is required and quietly delaying because they cannot fit one in.
Keep reading
- Everything for a mortgage brokerProcess, documents and fees are safe to automate. Rates go stale fast and affordability cannot be answered generically.
- Handling location and parking in generalWhich entrance, where to park, the step free route, the nearest stop. Genuinely useful information that is almost never written down well.
- The portal is where the access problem is, not the front doorThe upload step is the barrier, the fact find runs long, and a joint applicant cannot be spoken for unless the firm has recorded it.
- An estate agency wants to know how the firm holds a client's paperworkIntroducers vet the firms they refer to. The questions are about payslips, statements and identity documents sitting together in one place.
- The cover a lender insists on, and the cover that is a second appointmentBuildings cover is a lender condition with a deadline. Life cover is a separate regulated sale. Neither gets advised on in a chat window.
Try it on your own material
Upload a document or point it at your site, paste one line of HTML, then ask it something only your business could answer.