Leading Loan Company Transforms their Systems
Focus on implementing the best of custom development, the right software, and simplified systems transforms leading loan company
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HawaiiVA |
Company Bio
In 2007 Hawaii VA Loans started business. Their goal was to provide the best options for loans for veterans in Hawaii. With a great forward-thinking mentality, company execs were invested in implemented whatever software it took to get a competitive edge. Their pre-approval, search and offer system quickly built momentum, and the company began to grow as their client base grew.
Tech
Challenge
As the company grew, so did the need for the right software. With multiple applications used to run their marketing, client database and HR, it became more and more apparent that everything needed to be streamlined to avoid losing important data and increase effectiveness overall.
The solution they had found previously was hiring developers to build custom software to both connect their existing software and fill in the gaps of what they lacked. The only other option was to get pre-canned connectors that didn’t really do what they wanted them to.
It was expensive, and it took months to make a course correction or add a new feature to their software, making implementation slow and often outdated.
Solution
With help from Openside, Hawaii VA Loans implemented two main changes. The first was introduce them to Airtable. The part database, part team collaboration platform was instrumental in filling in the gaps of their current systems. We set up their Airtable account as an “in-between” for their website and their CRM (PipelineDeals), greatly simplifying the data delivery and easily outlining the actionable items for their team. Anything that didn’t seem to have a home in either their CRM or their Email platform (Autopilot) now had a home in Airtable.
Next we took their current integrations (using Zapier) and did a significant amount of simplification. Their previous set up did the job, but the configuration was so complicated it took a dedicated developer to understand and run it. We used our custom built connectors for Zapier to do everything they had before plus much more. The result was much simpler, taking their 73 zaps and turning them into a much more manageable 15 (80% efficiency improvement!). Now, someone already on their team could be trained to manage them easily.
Benefits
and Results
Our friends over at Hawaii VA Loans didn’t know what was possible until we came around to show them.
In their case, the work we did for them can be tracked to making this kind of difference:
- Moving away from pure custom development (more cost and time) to less expense and just as good. Cut dev costs at least in half, development time 75%
- Augmenting their CRM to do more than it does out of the box. Everyone has “our CRM or finance platform is good, but it doesn’t do these 3 things we really want it to” – we made it do those things
- Filling in the missing data to get the full picture of the story with their customers
- Automation to reduce manual labor time and cost – 1-2 full time employees worth of time
With the right systems in place (and with a few ongoing pointers from us at Openside) Hawaii VA Loans was finally ready to scale the way they wanted to, with affordable software solutions and simple implementation. Since then, they’ve helped hundreds of veterans become homeowners in Hawaii. You can hear more of their story on their website: https://hawaiivaloans.com/our-story/