Mortgage Broker Case Study: Rate-Drop Refinance Re-Engagement
How a mortgage broker with 1,900 past clients turned a dormant database into a refinance pipeline, with outreach that fires automatically when rates fall below what a client is paying.
Overview
The client is a mortgage brokerage in Orange County with two loan officers and about 1,900 closed loans over the past six years. Every closed loan sat in the database with a rate and a date, and nobody looked at it again. When rates dropped, the loan officers called whoever they remembered, and past clients refinanced with whichever lender emailed them first.
Gain Rhino set up rate-drop re-engagement in the CRM. Each past client carries their note rate, loan amount and closing date. When current rates fall a set margin below a client's rate, the system sends a personal text and email from their loan officer with an estimated monthly saving and a link to start a refinance review. Replies land in the CRM, and the loan officer follows up with the numbers already on screen.
Research
We loaded the closed-loan history and ran the trigger logic against the past year of rate movements. About 640 clients would have crossed the refinance threshold at some point in that year. The brokerage had contacted 31 of them. Meanwhile, the loan officers estimated that a third of past clients who refinanced did so elsewhere.
The loan officers set the threshold and the message. We agreed on a minimum estimated monthly saving before a message goes out, so nobody receives an offer that is not worth their time, and a cooling-off period so no client hears from the brokerage more than once a quarter. Messages come from the original loan officer by name, because that relationship is the reason the client will answer.
Result
Past clients now hear from their own loan officer at the exact moment a refinance is worth a look, with their numbers in the message. The loan officers spend their time on people who replied instead of guessing whom to call. The database became the brokerage's best lead source.
By the numbers (first 90 days):
- Past clients re-engaged by rate-drop triggers412
- Refinance applications from past clients58
- Reply rate on rate-drop messagesabout 1 in 4
- Cold calls made by loan officers0
- Past clients contacted more than once per quarter0
Client identity withheld at their request. Figures reflect the first 90 days after launch.
