How Trussle Transformed Their Customer Experience With Aircall and HubSpot

There’s nothing worse than buying a new home or refinancing at a lower rate and having to go through a drawn-out, complicated mortgage application process. For most people, applying for a mortgage means taking time off work and too much paperwork. Even when things go well, stress and anxiety rule the day.

This is why the founders at Trussle sought to disrupt the traditional mortgage lending process, by developing an online mortgage application process that removes the friction and hassle from getting approved for a mortgage. Trussle, a UK based company that employs 160 people and was founded in 2015, acts as a liaison between customers and lenders, matching customers up with lenders that will likely approve their loans. Additionally, they give customers advice on how to reduce mortgage payments and pay down the deposit.

In a recent chat with Steve Burt, the Head of Customer Experience, we learned how his team is taking huge strides in improving customer experience in 2021 and why Aircall and HubSpot are a central part of that plan.

Who is Trussle?

With Trussle, applicants simply scan documents and submit them. Trussle employees facilitate the processing and underwriting activities to improve the customers’ chance of approval for their mortgage.

The onset of the pandemic forced most businesses to make a fast switch to online activities. Trussle however, was ahead of the game with their business model as an online mortgage broker. This has allowed them to help more people buy their homes than ever.

The operations team, which includes sales, operations and customer service is responsible for ensuring Trussle’s customers have an excellent experience. This team, which numbers around 90 employees, uses Aircall and HubSpot to ensure that customers have a great experience at every stage of their journey.

One of the key challenges Trussle faced was making sure sales reps were asking all the right questions and were clear on which documents customers needed to provide. These steps were important as they ensured customers were matched with the right lenders. A declined mortgage application has the potential to negatively impact customer experience and reflect poorly on the company.

Keeping Human Connection Alive Through Technology

Due to the complexity and multiple steps that the mortgage application process requires, Steve and his teams didn’t believe that their process should be 100% automated. They feared the lack of a human connection would result in a substandard customer experience. Ultimately, they made the decision to marry tech with the human voice in the parts of the journey where it made sense. This approach allows them to accomplish more in 5-minute long conversations than they would in a time consuming string of emails.

Aircall was the missing link that brought the human presence into Trussle’s existing CX model. One of the reasons Steve chose Aircall is because of how brilliantly it integrates with HubSpot, a tool that’s been invaluable for them. With Aircall and HubSpot, it’s easy to personalise the customer experience, track the results, ensure compliance and prevent fraud.

By contrast, most of Trussle’s competitors depend solely on digital interactions including website, email and live chats. Trussle takes into account that obtaining a mortgage is a major life decision, and customers don’t take it lightly. By speaking with a live human being, customers gain a greater degree of trust in Trussle and their process.

Before Aircall, the phone system was more of a hindrance than a help. The previous provider's poor UX meant that reps had trouble finding features, the system was frustrating to use, and there were no viable shortcuts. The previous system also lacked the ability to track missed calls, pause recordings for compliance reasons, or provide greater visibility into their customer service team activity.

With the switch to Aircall, they’ve been able to remove any user experience issues, so their reps can provide the best experience. It also shows in their conversion rates, which reflects the overall improvements to their customer journey.

Fine-Tuning CX Strategies with Aircall

One of the biggest changes since implementing Aircall is their ability to change the call flow structure without having to waste time and jump through hoops.

“When the operations team needs to change the call flow structure, they can do it within 15-20 seconds, and they can easily divert calls as they need to. That’s been massively important to us.”⸺Steve Burt, Head of Customer Experience

In addition to the overall ease of use, the managers and team leaders use call monitoring to streamline the onboarding process for new employees, saving them days of training time.

Trussle has an eye on large growth goals in 2021. To support these goals, Steve decided to create a framework that would help the decision-making process for all teams - engineering, strategy, product and marketing. Additionally, Steve created a CX department with the sole purpose of evaluating the customer journey and fine-tuning the smallest details to improve the customer experience.

As a result, Steve’s team spends their days studying online journeys using UX recording tools, analysing user reviews and spotting trends in user behaviour. The voice of the customer takes centre stage at every internal meeting and workshop with the end goal of increasing conversions.

Additionally, Steve works extensively with the product team and marketing team to explore how they can influence the customer experience through creating detailed personas and developing marketing campaigns. He provides feedback to the product team on customer behaviour, explores options for new features and tweaks nuances around the UX and CX.

Aircall and HubSpot Add Value to the Customer Experience

When a customer signs up on Trussle’s website, the customer journey begins. An advisor connects with the customer using Aircall to get the details, identify potential lenders, and explain how the process works. The advisor then provides the key information to a case manager who also uses Aircall to communicate with the customer throughout the processing and approval process. Teams use the power dialer or click to dial features to increase efficiency.

The online process progress is monitored by the customer service team to detect any issues with applications. If issues present themselves, the team can immediately reach out to them by phone. To give them a greater comfort level with the process, customers get regular updates on their applications via the phone. Trussle employees also use live chat, emails and social media messengers for customers that prefer to communicate on another channel.

Trussle has been able to outperform competitors while keeping their customer experience scalable with a great blend of technology and human presence.

The HubSpot chatbot automatically puts customers into the journey, and HubSpot’s v2 feature automatically logs call data into the custom contact properties to trigger HubSpot workflows.

The customer service and compliance teams make outbound calls, and the details provide reps with information to help them personalise calls. It makes a huge impact on the customer experience when reps can help customers expedite their mortgage process without any hiccups.

“When we address customers by their name, they feel cared for. They’re thinking this company is really on it, and it makes our reps feel really slick!”⸺Steve Burt, Head of Customer Experience

Aircall has also helped protect the confidentiality of Trussle’s customers. Team members can pause recordings as needed to protect the customers’ privacy to comply with regulations

“Being able to pause the recording was actually a major deal for us.”⸺Steve Burt, Head of Customer Experience

Steve and his team leaders utilise live feeds on the dashboard to get visibility and manage their customer service teams. Team members are expected to make a certain number of calls every day and the live feed helps team leaders evaluate productivity.

The most important metric Trussle tracks is the rate of missed calls per user. They don’t want to leave any stones unturned when a customer has a problem or an issue that’s weighing on their mind. If something does go wrong, Steve’s team has developed KPIs for customer-facing teams so they can proactively pinpoint the source of the issue.

Steve was quick to point out that the Aircall and HubSpot integration gave them an unexpected advantage - spotting fraud, a common problem in the mortgage industry. In fraudulent schemes, criminals attempt to use mortgages for the purpose of money laundering. The Aircall and HubSpot integration helps them detect these incidents early because they can detect customers that are trying to create multiple accounts using the same phone number. Trussle gained huge value in the area of fraud prevention with the Aircall implementation.

Steve recommended Aircall because of its outstanding features and ease of use. The Operations Director also shortlisted Aircall because of its features and its seamless integration with HubSpot.

Aircall Outshines the Competition with Features and Benefits

As for the future, Steve wants to explore how Aircall can further minimise missed calls. Also, the insurance teams make huge numbers of outbound calls, and he’d like to see them leverage the easy to use power dialer to increase efficiency. Steve envisions utilising these channels to provide customers with timely updates on the channels they prefer.

“What gets measured, gets managed. Aircall gives me an accurate way to track agent availability, prevent missed calls, redirect calls, and change workflows within seconds. Our employees know what’s expected of them and how their performance will be measured. As a result, the overall performance of the company has improved.”⸺Steve Burt, Head of Customer Experience