Title Agency - titlecapture.com

Rising Interest Rates, Inflation, Low Transactional Volume: It’s A Great Time to Start a Title Company!

Alex Samant — Wed, 12 Oct 2022 06:55:36 +0000

With transactional volume descending due to market conditions, it’s an excellent time to enter the title insurance industry for many reasons. Cash is king, especially now, so the launching of the title company always begins with sufficient capitalization. However, entrepreneurs with lots of cash must also learn how to efficiently start a title company before making an entrance into this niche cottage industry. To start a title company, chosen personnel must be super organized, provide exemplary customer service, detail-oriented, and be knowledgeable about the industry. Title Technology is now so advanced that entrepreneurs have many choices of tech stacks to work with.

Here are the Critical Steps to Start a Title Company

Step 1: Understanding the States Licensing and Business Requirements
The insurance licensing requirements for starting a title company vary by state, but it’s relatively easy to determine what they are. Applicants need to visit the department of insurance website for their target states. The National Association of Commissioners or NAIC surveyed each state’s regulators and collected information on each state’s laws related to licensing, title data, and other title matters. Therefore, the NAIC is a good resource concerning title agency licensing.

The requirements for starting a title company generally include being personally financially stable, E and O insurance, a crime bond, relevant education, and becoming individually licensed, some of which we cover later. This is what is known as “producer” licensing. After becoming a title producer, the agency must become licensed in a second step. The individual producer becomes the designated licensed responsible producer for the agency.

However, in many states, licensed attorneys play some part in the real estate transactional process. These are known as “attorney states,” where law, rule, and custom dictate attorney involvement in certain parts of the process.

Step 2: Education and Testing

Each state may require that its residents take a pre-licensing course and examination. The subjects covered on the licensing exam will include real estate transactions, title exception procedures for clearing a title, title insurance principles, general insurance concepts, and insurance regulation.

Those interested can find a list of the educational entities that have classes that have been approved for their states at the department of financial services. If the applicants are attorneys, this requirement may be waived for them.

Step 3: Bonds and Insurance

Title companies must carry a fidelity bond and, in some cases, a surety bond. The surety bond assures clients that the company can fulfill its obligations. It also informs the clients that the company will return the money paid to it if something happens and it is forced to go out of business. A fidelity bond is to cover the risk of theft of client funds by employees.

In most states, business owners will carry an Errors and Omissions policy. This is also known as “professional liability insurance,” It must cover the business for at least $250,000. If a client files a claim against the company for negligence, the Errors and Omissions insurance policy will pay the legal expenses.

Step 4: Choice of Entity and Formation of Same

An entrepreneur faced with a tax and business consideration of the choice of entity should consult with an attorney or CPA or both on this matter, choosing either an LLC or straight C corporation.

Contemporaneously with the formation of the business entities, one will also need to apply for an Employer Identification Number or EIN with the Internal Revenue Service. Instead of a Social Security Number, a business owner will use an EIN. The EIN will make it possible for them to set up bank accounts for their companies and pay their taxes.

Note that many states have requirements for the name that business owners can give their businesses called “naming conventions.” To protect the brand, one may purchase a trademark. After everything is finished, remember to register the name of the title agency with the Secretary of State.

Step 5: Underwriter Selection
Operations cannot commence until an underwriting agreement is in place between the agency and the underwriter. Underwriters are all different in certain respects. Some are larger than others in terms of financial stability and market capitalization. An underwriter also has a “personality.” Some are tech-focused, whereas others may be focused on old-fashioned customer service. The choice of an underwriter is paramount, so consulting with a title professional who knows the ins and outs of all underwriters is very important in the long term to ensure a good “fit.”

The post Rising Interest Rates, Inflation, Low Transactional Volume: It’s A Great Time to Start a Title Company! first appeared on titlecapture.com.

10 Ways to Improve Your Title Agency’s Call Center Customer Experience

Alex Samant — Wed, 31 Aug 2022 09:00:00 +0000

A title agency’s success relies heavily on its ability to create an exemplary customer experience call center. Negative online reviews, testimonials, and offline word-of-mouth accounts by customers who experienced poor customer service or even a long wait time can damage an agency’s reputation. That said, an agency can effectively improve its reputation, promote loyalty, and build its client base by making call center improvements and other changes that guarantee they’re always providing high-quality engagement and customer service.

Read on to learn more about how to create a positive customer experience call center:

Give Employees Power with a Great Customer Experience Call Center

Customers loathe long wait times, especially after they reach a representative, only to be told that the rep must transfer them elsewhere. Allow your first-contact employees to use their discretion when dealing with most types of calls so that customers don’t have to wait a long time for a different supervisory employee to make or approve a decision.

Request Feedback Often

You can’t possibly know how to help customers without feedback about their experiences and ideas for improving their interactions or your products and services. Set up a feedback/suggestion form or email address and ask customers to complete surveys or open-ended questions designed to help you learn and improve the call center and your overall business.

Solicit Honest Opinions

Multiple-choice surveys aren’t as good as open-ended-question surveys. Instead of using multiple-choice surveys, create forms that literally ask a customer to tell you in their own words what they like and dislike about your business, products/services, and call center. Every customer should have the ability to provide feedback in an honest way and from their perspective.

Create Customer Programs

Customers need to know that you’re listening to them and taking their feedback and suggestions seriously. Create a program where a team helps you make changes based on customer feedback/suggestions. Additionally, create an agenda and team that focuses on publicly thanking customers for their opinions via blog, email, video, and social media posts.

Develop a Process Diagram

You also need to understand better customers’ interactions with your business and call center so that you can develop new strategies to improve their experiences. Develop a diagram that maps exactly how customers find their way to your business and interact with call center representatives. List details about some past positive and negative interactions and brainstorm with your employee’s ideas about how to improve these areas.

Make Customer-Focused Decisions

A company culture that isn’t dedicated to positive customer engagement and experiences is one of the biggest problems for many businesses. All employees, from executive leadership down to call-center cleaning and maintenance crews, should understand how they affect customers and what they need to do decision-wise to make a positive impact.

Think Beyond the Call Center

Many customers never want to speak with a live representative. They’re forced to do so because a business doesn’t offer them alternative options. Set up multiple alternative contact points for any device, including desktop computers, laptops, tablets, and mobile phones, through a site web form, email address, and social media messaging system.

Allow AI to Fill Gaps

Customers often call to speak with a live call center representative for the answer to a single question. A chatbot and other cutting-edge technologies can provide this and other services faster than a dedicated customer experience call center representative. These technologies can also help you with analytics to learn more about customers’ needs based on the topics covered in their questions.

Personalize Customer Experiences

Customers want to feel that they’re more than a number. At your title agency’s customer experience call center, representatives should focus on consistently providing personalized experiences. For example, they might acknowledge a customer’s past reason for calling in and the contact date, offer personalized recommendations for other products/services or even partner businesses, and follow up a few days later via phone or email to ask the customer for feedback.

Improve Overall Services

Lastly, it would help if you implemented an expansive change to create a positive customer experience in the call center and business. You can improve your call center’s customer service by ensuring every employee is the right match for their job, correctly trained, and managed positively with much support. Each representative also needs to know that you want them to focus more on building and maintaining customer relationships than call metrics and handling time.

The post 10 Ways to Improve Your Title Agency’s Call Center Customer Experience first appeared on titlecapture.com.