CASE STUDY:
MOBILE DEAL CAPTURES SOLUTION FOR BETTERBOND
A NEW SYSTEM THAT HAS RESULTED IN DRAMATIC
DATA AND DEAL CAPTURE IMPROVEMENTS.
South Africa’s leading bond originator is reaping major benefits following re-development of
the deal capture module of its transaction system. DigiQuill created a web-enabled, mobile
deal capture application that allows consultants to help customers wherever they are,
significantly speeds up the entire process and has improved customer service as well as
professionalism.
Customer Profile
BetterBond, part of the BetterGroup, handles the entire home loan application process on
behalf of customers. It has always relied on leading-edge technology to provide top class
customer service.
Business Challenge
BetterBond has partnered with DigiQuill for all its business analysis and software
development requirements, since 2007 when it chose the software development company to
build a new transaction system. DigiQuill won the tender at that time because it came up
with a compelling idea to improve the bond originator’s entire transaction process.
“We chose them because of a combination of their development capacity, but more than that,
their quick understanding of what our business is all about and how we could leapfrog our
processes to provide users with a significantly better operational platform,” says Johan de
Bruyn, COO of BetterBond.
The BetterGroup’s new system, which manages all applications in one system, throughout
their life cycle, was implemented at the beginning of 2008.
“In hindsight, we designed the application during the time of severe power failures and
concentrated on ensuring the system would cater for offline capture,” says de Bruyn. “Once
power was restored, data would be sent to the banks.”
This functionality, however, slowed the system down. In 2012 BetterBond therefore decided
to improve the data and deal capturing side of the system and once again turned to its
software partner, DigiQuill.
"DigiQuill has become an integral part of our team,” says de Bruyn. “Their understanding of
our needs as well as their response to challenges and new requirements is the main reason
we chose them as our development partner."
DigiQuill was tasked with speeding up and future-proofing BetterBond’s deal capturing
process.
The Solution
DigiQuill re-developed the deal capturing, front-end aspect of the BetterGroup’s bond
application processing system, creating a web application for mobile users.
Additional functionality was added, most significantly a consultant toolkit including home loan
calculators. Provision was also added to track the progress of deals prior to submission to
the banks.
Customer details are now saved and used to pre-populate forms should customers apply for
additional bonds.
Other features include the following, all of which are security-driven, based on permissions:
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a dashboard with quicklinks to action items, as well as alerts and notifications,
additional reporting which enables consultants to see the pipeline, and
document libraries.
The development was completed within a very aggressive, three-month timeline.
Results
The new system has resulted in dramatic data and deal capture improvements. Data is
easily captured via a simple Google-like interface and there is no longer any need for doublecapture. The system is much quicker for the approximately 600 users and customers within
the BetterGroup subsidiaries, BetterBond and Mortgage Max.
A major benefit is the mobility of the application, which means consultants and clients can
access the system using tablets, mobile phones, laptops or desktop PCs. They can now
interact with clients on the go, providing a considerably higher level of customer service.
Calculators are integrated into the system so consultants can perform calculations and
professionally embed the results into client emails.
Users no longer need to import information as the system automatically extracts the data. In
addition, a new indexing system ensures that the various documents required by the banks,
including ID documents, payslips and application forms, are automatically split out and sent
on.
The new pre-submission functionality enables BetterBond consultants to monitor leads and
check their success rates. They now can access statistics relating to successful applications
and clients lost.
Finally, the new system
professionalism.
features
improved
reporting
which
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greater