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Bonzo Leader Says Success Starts With Personalized Messaging

By KIMBERLEY HAAS

The co-founder and president of a relationship management automation provider for mortgage professionals says taking a more personal approach to messaging makes a difference.

Jason Perkins says at Bonzo they were intentional about the features and assets they built into their system.

“We really wanted something that was going to move the needle for our business and create more conversations,” Perkins said in a recent interview with The Mortgage Note.

Perkins said they looked at the work loan officers were performing and figured out how to scale their voices with a few clicks of a button. A user can do everything from converting leads to nurturing past clients, he said.

“We have a broadcast feature, and you can schedule those broadcasts, whether it’s e-mail, text, or calls to go out at a certain given time,” Perkins said.

He said reaching out with generic, or seasonal, messages, doesn’t work, and offered an example of a personalized post-close campaign for buyers that might get a loan officer repeat business and future referrals.

“A good example would be two weeks after they closed sending in a text message, ‘Hey, did you change the locks on your doors? If not, do you need a recommendation for a locksmith?’” Perkins said.

Two months later, the loan officer can reach back out to those same buyers to see if they need recommendations for a local contractor. Using their own voice, mortgage professionals can become known as trusted experts in their communities.

When asked how loan officers using Bonzo manage the additional workload when they have an increase in responses, Perkins said every new conversation is highlighted for them.

“You can even get a push notification to your cell phone that runs parallel with the web app so if they’re not in front of their desktop they can see all those responses right there in the mobile app,” Perkins said.

Bonzo, which is headquartered in Columbus, Ohio, has more than 2,000 clients and over 10,000 users, Perkins said.

It was announced last month that New American Funding, an independent mortgage lender and servicer, replaced their proprietary customer relationship management system with Bonzo’s platform. CEO Rick Arvielo said in a statement that they are always striving to give the best tools to their originators.

“It’s just the best I have ever seen, and we are excited to roll it out to our LOs,” Arvielo said of Bonzo’s product.

On Aug. 2, leaders at Mobility Market Intelligence announced the company’s acquisition of Bonzo. The Utah-based company offers data intelligence and market insight tools for the mortgage and real estate industries.

“Built around how customers want to communicate today, Bonzo is a breath of fresh air in what can often feel like a stale mortgage technology landscape, and we see tremendous potential in the potent combination of MMI’s industry-leading data and Bonzo’s new-generation marketing and technology,” MMI Founder and CEO Ben Teerlink said in a statement.

Twenty of the country’s top 25 lenders use MMI. Perkins, co-founder and COO/CRO Miles Miller, and CEO Chad Jampedro will continue to guide Bonzo as it operates as an independent service of MMI, according to a press release.

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