CLIENT

• Leading Super Regional Bank
• Residential Mortgage Servicing Organization
• High Service and High Cost Operation
• Recent reorganization/consolidation

BACKGROUND

This assignment involved the Residential Mortgage Servicing organization of one of the largest and most successful regional banks in the U.S. Our client ranked among the top mortgage companies in the country. The Mortgage organization was pursuing an aggressive growth strategy.

The client recently had consolidated operations from three to two centers, moved functions between centers and reduced staff by nearly 15%. We were hired to redesign and streamline both management and business processes to accomplish three objectives:

• Adapt to and internalize recent reductions in staff
• Make sustained progress in reducing unit costs, without deterioration in customer service
• Equip the organization to handle the doubling of its portfolio in 2 years

New acquisition strategies, high volumes of refinancing activity and consolidation of the servicing market clearly demanded a new operating model for this client.

KEY ISSUES

• Forecasts and capacity plans were inadequate at the frontline level. Demand cycles varied between department, minimal resource sharing was used
• Individual performance variation within areas was 60% to 150%
• 90% of calls from customers were callbacks about unresolved problems, over 50% of high priority escalated issues were overdue
• Firstline supervisors lacked the tools and training to be effective. On average, less than 25% of their time was spent on supervisory tasks
• Productivity was at 63%
• Core process work activities were highly exception based, causing unnecessary rework and inspection. Non value-added work represented nearly 40% of staff effort