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I had a very good and lengthy conversation with the manager of Title Services today in Resort Title Agency. I am pretty happy with the changes they have made to help improve the transfer process. I'll summarize some of the changes here that I was told and why I believe it will improve throughput and customer service.
I have a lot of open escrows at Resort Title at the moment, so inevitably I get exposed to any organizational or process changes they undergo. I must admit, the last 2-3 months has been quite painful for me personally. But, I believe the changes will serve to improve throughput going forward for all of us and this re-org was an important step in the continued growth of Bluegreen.
Prior to the recent organizational changes, a transfer would be handled by a handful of people. That was great because any time you had a question about an open escrow, you would just call or email that person and you would get immediate response on the status of your closing. You got to know these people on a first name basis. I even took a few of them out for lunch to thank them for their efforts on my account.
Inevitably, a successful company grows to the point where old processes don't scale to meet the demand. This happened to Resort Title. No longer could a handful of people handle all of the paperwork and workflow. So, to get more efficient, RTA had to take away the small groups of people working on specific projects and create fewer, but larger groups to handle the workload. The transition has been rough as escrow times have significantly increased over the past 3 months. My average escrow time has increased by 1-2 months. That is huge.
However, today, I finally see the light at the end of this seemingly never ending tunnel. Today, I called Resort Title. 3 people were available to answer questions on status of escrows. Each time I called, there was no hold time. The customer service reps are getting up to speed, so they are not familiar with the nuances of every closing type, but at least we could get a status. That is far better than what many of you have experienced recently where you leave a message and people don't contact you for weeks. In speaking to the manager, she said do not leave voicemail. You should always speak to someone real time who will log your call on your account and everyone processing paperwork in the background will now provide updated status onto your account. I believe this single change of creating a group that answers status questions and having others update status on each account will itself lead to dramatically improved customer service. I was able to finally get the decent status on my open escrows for the first time in months. We have a few problems, but at least I know they are being worked.
The other change is that the group processing paperwork has increased from a handful to over 20. Now there are a lot of processors. Over the long haul, this will give them great efficiencies. But, in the short term, it's difficult because everyone needs to know how to handle everything. That doesn't happen over night. This, in my view, has contributed to the longer escrows near term. And, of course, the handoffs were certainly not smooth. It seemed that for weeks at a time, files would remain unopened on desks. How do I know that? Because I can compare processing times for various activities and contrast the before and after throughput. It used to be, for instance, that if you opened escrow, the check you sent would be deposited within 7-days. Now, the simple process of depositing a check to open an escrow can take 4 weeks or more if there is a problem with the application. That is measured by the date of sending a transfer document to the date the check cleared.
So, many of you have complained about the transfer process at Resort Title. It's still painful now just like the call center consolidation that the Customer Service and Reservation team undewent a couple of years ago. Interestingly enough, the changes they are making at Resort Title are mirroring the changes in reservations. The first thing that happened there was they took away the specialists that we called directly and created a general group. Then, they cross trained everyone to do every function. That took a good 6-12 months before the knowledge level was good enough for the experienced Bluegreen owners like BruceCZ and me who have extremely complex accounts with lots of ownership types and reservation rules. In the mean time, those customer service levels dropped. But, in 6-12 months, it got dramatically better. I expect the same thing to happen with RTA.
Thanks RTA for listening to my complaints and fixing the communications procedures. I am so glad that you put this in place before the busy summer months.
If you have an open escrow. Try it. Call Resort Title. I believe you won't get put on hold and someone will be able to tell you directly the status of your escrow.
I have a lot of open escrows at Resort Title at the moment, so inevitably I get exposed to any organizational or process changes they undergo. I must admit, the last 2-3 months has been quite painful for me personally. But, I believe the changes will serve to improve throughput going forward for all of us and this re-org was an important step in the continued growth of Bluegreen.
Prior to the recent organizational changes, a transfer would be handled by a handful of people. That was great because any time you had a question about an open escrow, you would just call or email that person and you would get immediate response on the status of your closing. You got to know these people on a first name basis. I even took a few of them out for lunch to thank them for their efforts on my account.
Inevitably, a successful company grows to the point where old processes don't scale to meet the demand. This happened to Resort Title. No longer could a handful of people handle all of the paperwork and workflow. So, to get more efficient, RTA had to take away the small groups of people working on specific projects and create fewer, but larger groups to handle the workload. The transition has been rough as escrow times have significantly increased over the past 3 months. My average escrow time has increased by 1-2 months. That is huge.
However, today, I finally see the light at the end of this seemingly never ending tunnel. Today, I called Resort Title. 3 people were available to answer questions on status of escrows. Each time I called, there was no hold time. The customer service reps are getting up to speed, so they are not familiar with the nuances of every closing type, but at least we could get a status. That is far better than what many of you have experienced recently where you leave a message and people don't contact you for weeks. In speaking to the manager, she said do not leave voicemail. You should always speak to someone real time who will log your call on your account and everyone processing paperwork in the background will now provide updated status onto your account. I believe this single change of creating a group that answers status questions and having others update status on each account will itself lead to dramatically improved customer service. I was able to finally get the decent status on my open escrows for the first time in months. We have a few problems, but at least I know they are being worked.
The other change is that the group processing paperwork has increased from a handful to over 20. Now there are a lot of processors. Over the long haul, this will give them great efficiencies. But, in the short term, it's difficult because everyone needs to know how to handle everything. That doesn't happen over night. This, in my view, has contributed to the longer escrows near term. And, of course, the handoffs were certainly not smooth. It seemed that for weeks at a time, files would remain unopened on desks. How do I know that? Because I can compare processing times for various activities and contrast the before and after throughput. It used to be, for instance, that if you opened escrow, the check you sent would be deposited within 7-days. Now, the simple process of depositing a check to open an escrow can take 4 weeks or more if there is a problem with the application. That is measured by the date of sending a transfer document to the date the check cleared.
So, many of you have complained about the transfer process at Resort Title. It's still painful now just like the call center consolidation that the Customer Service and Reservation team undewent a couple of years ago. Interestingly enough, the changes they are making at Resort Title are mirroring the changes in reservations. The first thing that happened there was they took away the specialists that we called directly and created a general group. Then, they cross trained everyone to do every function. That took a good 6-12 months before the knowledge level was good enough for the experienced Bluegreen owners like BruceCZ and me who have extremely complex accounts with lots of ownership types and reservation rules. In the mean time, those customer service levels dropped. But, in 6-12 months, it got dramatically better. I expect the same thing to happen with RTA.
Thanks RTA for listening to my complaints and fixing the communications procedures. I am so glad that you put this in place before the busy summer months.
If you have an open escrow. Try it. Call Resort Title. I believe you won't get put on hold and someone will be able to tell you directly the status of your escrow.
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