How Profunding transformed internal efficiency and strengthened client service capability
Since 2007, Profunding has been providing its business customers with efficient financing solutions. To maintain their high standard of customer service while minimising the burden of repetitive tasks, they turned to using a specialised digital platform and a virtual assistant to optimise their workflow.
Founded in 2007, Profunding is a Melbourne-based brokerage offering independent and cost-effective financing solutions to its business and self-employed customers. They speclialise in debt structuring, acquisition finance and financial consulting. Initially focused on business finance, Profunding has expanded to offer mortgages for self-employed customers. The business employs one other broker and an offshore virtual assistant (VA).
Paul Dubois, the founder and General Manager at Profunding, brings over 20 years of experience in finance and deal structuring to the business. Dubois’s goal for Profunding was to enhance the customer experience by delivering a low-touch approach. This meant asking for information only once, delivering lenders high quality data, and reducing rework. It’s a goal which ultimately helps Dubois regain valuable time.
Major challenge: The commercial loan process is time consuming and repetitive
Profunding faced a challenge common to all brokers working with commercial lending clients: the time consuming and repetitive nature of manual credit paper creation. Each lender imposing their unique requirements made the process highly inefficient, and worse, prone to errors and rework.
According to Dubois, a great customer experience falls apart when brokers need to repeatedly ask customers for information. Similarly, providing lenders with everything they need the first time, in the manner they want, is the quickest way to secure a solution for customers
Recognising opportunities for improvement
With the goal of delivering a painless customer experience, Dubois recognised that a digital solution to streamline operations could accelerate turnaround times and reduce redundant effort. Instead of reworking deals from scratch for each lender, a digital platform would allow Profunding to replicate previous transactions and quickly present them to other lenders, accelerating outcomes for clients.
CitoPlus was not the first platform that Profunding tried; they initally trialed another software solution. “It was clunky. It didn’t work as well as CitoPlus, even in the early days [prior to CitoPlus’s significant enhancements],” notes Dubois. “When CitoPlus came along I thought, this is the system I want. It can do all the things I need it to.”
Solution: Maximise efficiency with a tailored digital platform
Get it right the first time
As an experienced broker, you have a good understanding of what the lender is going to ask you, Dubois explains. Providing the lender with everything they want upfront allows for quick loan approval, avoiding brokers being given a “shopping list”, or delays caused by unexpected questions out of the left field. “You’re eliminating the question before it gets asked.”
One reason Dubois loves CitoPlus’s integrated search capabilities is that it makes it easy to quickly build a complete customer profile – whether they’re a trading or non-trading entity, where assets are owned, if they have multiple directorships. “It sounds simple, and you go why do you need that. If you can answer most of the lender’s questions up front, you get a speedier result for your client.”
Filter out time wasters
Dubois understood there was always a risk in investing time and resources in leads were unlikely to convert. He wanted a system to help him quickly identify and secure promising opportunities.
Being able to instantly autogenerate a mandate letter turned out to be a significant advantage. “When you’re dealing with commercial clients you need to be able to take that deal off the table,” says Dubois. “If, for some reason, the client wants to deal with multiple brokers, at least you’re in the position to say here’s my mandate letter. You’re paying me regardless, so why are you dealing with multiple people?”
Uncovering hidden risks and challenges at the start has been another game-changer. Vital details a client has missed or withheld can derail a deal or change the approach needed.
“We all know that if you don’t get the money out of the client at the start… you go on and do all the work in a deal and it falls over at the end for something they should have told you about at the start,” says Dubois. “They’ll never turn around and go ‘Look, I’m really sorry Paul, here’s your money anyway’. They walk away and you’ve just wasted your time.”
Making use of CitoPlus’s automated searches helps identify red flags early on, allowing Profunding to make informed decisions about how to allocate their limited time and resources. “There are certain things that a broker should do before committing time to any transaction and those things are to understand the credit worthiness of the borrower.” says Dubois. Completing credit checks or Comprehensive Credit Reporting (CCR) at the start of an engagement quickly helps Profunding establish a thorough understanding of the borrower and their debts, which lender they will best fit with and ensures there are no unwelcome surprises.
Boost productivity with a virtual assistant
A major shift for Profunding was onboarding their offshore virtual assistant onto the CitoPlus platform. “I think the critical thing in any business is that you want your people to use the same systems you do, so that everyone is working with the same information,” says Dubois.
The system, being highly intuitive, meant she was easily able to take on tasks like data extraction and inputting deals. As Dubois explains, “Using a VA has meant that she can do the background work that I don’t have the time for, or if I find myself tied up with other things.”
One of the unexpected benefits of CitoPlus’s robust support resources is that Dubois was able to completely outsource the training of his virtual assistant. Via one-on-one training sessions and live chat, CitoPlus’s support team was able to coach Dubois’s virtual assistant through deal set up and background searches, so she was able to hit the ground running and deliver immediate productivity wins.
Dubois explains that requesting work like a company or title search is now as easy as a message to his VA from his phone while on his way to a meeting. Making it easy to be a step ahead of the game.
Result: A streamlined process for delivering better results
After implementing CitoPlus, Dubois noticed that their increased efficiency flowed into better experience for clients and significant time savings.
Speedier results for clients
The intuitive end-to-end workflow that is built into CitoPlus helps teams work together smoothly and productively. “I think the system is very user-friendly so our support staff will be able to use it confidently,” says McKay.
“I think the important thing that CitoPlus has allowed me to achieve is to be more efficient in my job.”
Speedier results for clients
One of the most critical factors in commercial lending is speed. Using CitoPlus to quickly build a thorough understanding of a client’s profile enables Profunding to quickly find logical solutions, accelerate the application process with the right lender and deliver the high-quality data needed for fast lending decisions.
“CitoPlus allows us to be efficient and move as quickly as possible for our clients,” says Dubois. “If you’re going to write commercial loans it’ll change your life.”
More time, more success
Since implementing CitoPlus, Dubois noticed the time savings adding up. “It is one place that I can go to get all the information that I need to put a deal together. And it has some nice add on features that save time like the autogenerated mandate letters.”
“I think the important thing that CitoPlus has allowed me to achieve is to be more efficient in my job,” says Dubois, who estimates the platform saves him 4-5 hours of work per deal. “If you work out what 4-5 hours work per deal is worth to you on a yearly basis, it’s probably another couple of deals.”
Wondering how CitoPlus can help your business? Contact Sales to schedule a demo.
