Homestar Direct: Using IP Telephony To Gain A Competitive Edge

As nearly everyone in America can attest, the residential real estate market continues to defy the odds by growing at a near exponential pace. All over the country, buyers are in hot pursuit of their “dream home,” whether it’s a sprawling home in the suburbs, a penthouse with a city view, or a beachside vacation retreat.

Keeping pace with this hot real estate market is the highly competitive mortgage lending arena, where literally thousands of financial institutions battle one another in search of customers looking for new mortgages, or to refinance their existing loans. This frenetic activity has resulted in hundreds of new entrants into the marketplace, resulting in intense competition and compressed windows of opportunity for lenders to attract and secure new business.

“To say this is a competitive environment would be an extreme understatement,” says Jamie Troia, director of information technology for Homestar Direct, a mortgage lender based in Paramus, New Jersey. “Once upon a time, customers met with their neighborhood bankers and shopped for mortgages in person. Obviously, the Internet has changed that paradigm. Today, our company competes with lenders that are located throughout the country, and use go-to-market strategies that rely on speed and efficiency to identify customers. In order to remain successful, we leverage technology to give us a competitive edge. We literally do not have a second to waste.”

Success is a subject very familiar to Homestar Direct. A division of Opteum Financial Services, Homestar Direct originates some $30 million in mortgages per month, serving a customer base that’s primarily located in the Northeastern and Mid-Atlantic regions of the country.

While most of the company’s 65 employees work out of the company’s Paramus headquarters, the company was exploring new avenues that would allow its agents to maximize performance and generate more income. The idea of using a team of agents to work flexible hours to handle periods with high call volume made strategic sense. The challenge was to identify a technology solution that would allow Homestar Direct to implement this strategy without adversely affecting the company’s customer service or productivity.

As a potential solution, Homestar Direct met with several vendors to explore voice over IP as a means to address their challenge, as well as to improve the overall productivity and efficiency of the organization. Upon reviewing the offerings of several providers, Homestar Direct selected Inter-Tel for both its VoIP connectivity and its ability to deliver applications that tangibly improve business processes.

“After meeting with Homestar Direct and understanding their challenges and business direction, we felt comfortable that we could offer a solution that would provide the flexibility they need as their business grows,” said Joseph Denise, chief operating officer with Norcom of New York Telecommunications Solutions, LLC, an authorized Inter-Tel distributor. “Our approach was to deliver an IP-based system that would certainly help Homestar Direct better utilize its personnel, as well as serve as a foundation that would positively impact the company’s business processes by improving productivity and enhancing customer service.”

By using Inter-Tel’s Axxess communications platform, along with Inter-Tel’s IP endpoints, Homestar Direct is able to maintain efficient operations seven days per week. The system’s IP capability enables agents to work from their homes while allowing them to access the company’s database resources and other tools to conduct business. The system is transparent to the customer, who receives the identical customer care as if they were calling into a centrally-located call center. Most importantly, the IP deployment allows Homestar Direct to remain competitive while giving it the flexibility to meet customer demand during peak hours.

“While Inter-Tel IP’s system has exceeded our expectations for overcoming our local staffing issues, we’re just as pleased with the reliability and elasticity of the platform,” explained Troia. “The ability to add and change agents without incurring additional expenses, along with the integration of powerful applications increases our capacity to serve more customers in an expeditious and efficient manner.”

According to Craig W. Rauchle, president and chief operating officer of Inter-Tel, a growing number of companies are mirroring Homestar Direct’s deployment of voice over IP.

“One of the most compelling aspects of IP communications is its ease and efficiency in facilitating remote communications,” he remarked. “Businesses like Homestar Direct, which rely heavily on knowledge-based workers and agents, are coming to the realization that these individuals can use IP technology to work from home offices, customer sites, or virtually any location that has broadband access. As these customers are finding out, the impact on productivity, customer service, and efficiency is substantial.”