We caught up with Greg Walker, CEO of RANLife, to talk about the top reasons that drove him to switch subservicers and how his partnership with TMS has eliminated those pain points and allowed him to focus on growing his business.

TMS: Greg, it’s great being able to talk to you. What was the motivation behind wanting to switch subservicers and how long were you considering it?

GW: We considered it for a couple of years. The biggest factor we considered for a switch was being a small company. We felt like we were being outsized in customer service with some of the bigger aggregators. Our previous servicer had 2 clients out of 80 that had 60% of their pipeline. And we noticed service levels changed significantly depending on what those clients were doing with their portfolios. Another significant reason we switched was the lack of transparency. We couldn’t review files, listen to calls, or get a real handle on whether our portfolio was being serviced properly. Those are the two major things that motivated us to switch. With our previous servicer, we were able to listen to calls, but they were hand selected and at times felt like it was listening to their best calls. It’s nothing like that with TMS. With SIME, we have real time access to our portfolio and we’re able to listen to all calls, anytime.

TMS: This leads us to the next question. How was your prior servicer not meeting your expectations?

GW: When I first engaged with our prior servicer, I pointed out that their two largest clients had most of their volume. And I asked what happens if one or both leaves? Well, it happened to be that both of them did leave that servicer. Then they picked up another client that was even bigger than the previous. So, we felt like we were kind of being pushed by the economies of running business outside of service levels. Our service levels depended on the larger client’s portfolio.

TMS: What were the must haves when evaluating your next subservicer?

GW: First and foremost, transparency. Being able to really have a grip on whether or not the loss net process is working, that the clients are being heard, that there’s an escalation process that’s adequate, and honestly being able to understand what’s going on without having to get too involved.

TMS: What was the reason overall that you decided to go with TMS?

GW: All of those main points along with senior management. Senior management gave me a lot of confidence. One of TMS’ senior manager used to work for HUD. That gave us a lot of confidence that we were going to have proper quality when it comes to servicing. The biggest element was being able to understand what’s going on and have that control is super important.

TMS: How has TMS helped your business since we became partners?

GW: TMS has helped our business significantly. We have a handle on how to make this part of our business very profitable. Our delinquency ratio and loss mitigation success is significantly better. Our delinquency is half of what it was at the time and that’s pretty awesome because we’re coming off the hills of a pandemic and we expected delinquency to stay hot for a while. Another way TMS has helped us is our customer satisfaction which is huge. Within the last couple years, we’ve had a lot of customers come back to refi with us and part of that reason is the servicing. I couldn’t say this about our previous servicer.

TMS: This takes us to the next part and we kind of touched on this one already. What do you like best about our technology and specifically, what are the biggest benefits of SIME?

GW: SIME is really great. We can access our entire portfolio in real time. It’s user friendly and it’s a very easy process getting into files and understanding what’s going on.

TMS: And would you say that TMS has been a good partner to your company? If so, in what ways?

GW: Absolutely. Communication and follow up are really crucial. Every once in a while, I want to get a little color from servicing and I get that from the TMS team.

TMS: What has been your observation of the performance of our customer facing teams? Do you have any comments on their experience and that they’re delivering through to your customers?

GW: I’ve probably listened to 200 calls in the time I’ve been with TMS. If there are pain points that we ask about, they’re addressed immediately. It seems like the biggest problem any servicer has outside of loss mitigation is managing and explaining escrow accounts. And whatever TMS is doing to train customer care reps on explaining the math to customers, well, they’re doing a great job.

TMS: Greg, thanks so much for your time today. We appreciate you taking the time to share your partnership experience with TMS.