New study shows building societies rate highest among advisors

August 4, 2020 by Brendan O'Neill

Surveys and Statistics

A new Smart Money People study that spoke to mortgage advisors in the UK has found that they report significantly higher levels of positivity towards building societies, compared with specialist lenders and banks.

The study asked those advisors who participated to rate their levels of work satisfaction with each lender during the first six months of this year and the results show average satisfaction levels of 85.9% when it comes to building societies. That is 10.3% higher than the levels for specialist lenders and 3.4% higher than those for banks during the same period.

Speaking to Mortgage Introducer, Smart Money People co-founder, Nate Harwood, stated that the study revealed the customer service standards and manual mortgage underwriting services provided by UK building societies had been cited by advisors as key reasons for their high ratings, before adding:

“With the mortgage market becoming increasingly cut-throat, maintaining the high levels of broker satisfaction seen across the first half of 2020 will no doubt prove to be critical to ensuring that building societies continue to thrive.”

The study asked advisors to rate both the positive and negative aspects of working with building societies. Underwriting and customer service were named as big positives, while outdated digital systems and service that is sometimes slow were the main negatives mentioned.

This is likely to prove useful for building societies in identifying what they need to improve about their mortgage services, just as advisors with a CeMAP qualification should constantly seek further professional development.