There has been a huge trend in closing companies to provide on-line updates of your transactions. The title and escrow company that I prefer to use is a prime example and one of the local innovators of this service. I receive weekly updated emailed to me showing the status of my transactions and I can log in to their site and view a dash board of my current closings. It’s a great tool and service. Many other title and escrow companies have copied their systems or something similar.
As great as the updates are, they are worthless if you don’t have service to back it up! I currently have a transaction with an escrow company (not my preferred) and at first I was pleased with the email updates I was receiving. We are scheduled to close in early May and we delivered loan docs to escrow April 16 (just shy of over two weeks before closing). My processor confirmed with the escrow officer that the loan docs were received.
We have sent countless emails and phone calls the the closing team to see when the buyer is signing and to receive an estimated HUD-1 Settlement Statement. No response from the escrow company…until I called the Realtor (who’s company has an interest in the escrow company). Voila…presto Escrow Officer! She’s now going to work on providing an estimated HUD-1 (after having the loan documents for 8 business days).
Sorry for the rant…my message to escrow companies (and to any company) who are implementing a lot of bells and whistles: don’t bother unless you have the staff to back it up! You’ve just thrown away all of the dollars invested into your software and system and blown it because your staff cannot return phone calls or emails.
Bill Massey, my manager many moons ago when I worked at Safeco Title used to tell me to "under promise and over deliver". This is a classic example of what happens when you do the opposite. This also proves how service can suffer when business is controlled and not earned.
I’m waiting to post this until after the transaction closes…
You’ve certainly touched a nerve here for me. I get so frustrated with title companies where you don’t receive any call backs or returned e-mails from the escrow officer. I can understand not being able to reach them from time to time, but they don’t even return their messages at the end of the day or the beginning of the next. I had a situation once where the Realtor was upset with me becuase of what the escrow officer did!!!
I’m not familiar with companies in my market going the technology route, but I would say just use existing technology effectively and you probably don’t need to invest in some of these advanced system.
Thanks Mortgage Porter. Great post.
Thanks, AZ. The title company I linked and referenced (The Talon Group) I prefer to work with. They call you in addition to to their email updates.
This other escrow company has ownership interest of a real estate company. And it was one of the worst closings I’ve experienced in a long time (KNOCK ON WOOD).
Thanks for your comment!