• Average industry growth 2014–2019: 3.2%

• The total value of owner-occupier home loans written Australia in July 2019 was $14.1 billion.

Home Loan Industry in Australia – Important Growth Drivers

• House prices have declined, helping first-home owners (FHO) to enter the housing market. 

• Higher migration between Interstate and overseas has led to the demand for residential properties, thereby leading to an increase in housing finance in Australia.

• A high employment rate of 83% of full-time employees contribute to a strong home loan industry in August. A high employment rate provides stability to borrowers to repay their debt obligations.

Home Loans in Australia: Researched Insights into Key Drivers of Customer Experience

A marketing insight basically starts as data, and upon passing through multiple layers of analysis, and after deep thought and reasoning, it emerges finally as an agent of change. Customer data when converted into useful marketing insights goes a long way in predicting your customers’ future choices based on their customer experience. Customer insights allow you to craft your marketing messages based on the predictions. By collecting and analyzing customer data, marketers get to know where to focus their time and effort to deliver an extraordinary customer experience.

Companies that leverage customer behavior data and create insights outperform peers by 85 percent in sales growth and more than 25 percent in gross margin, according to research by McKinsey.

It’s important to get deeper, industry-based marketing insights on how potential consumers perceive different industries, what do they need from a particular range of products, do they desire a particular benefit from a product or service, what does a particular segment of consumers believe in, and so on. 

Home is where the heart is! When consumers start a home loan search they do not just look at the interest rate, they consider many other home loan features that can save them big bucks and time.

So what do customers care the most about? As per online customer conversations, it turns out that customers are looking for a few features such as flexibility and easy approvals rather than fancy apps, websites, and free credit cards. 

Clootrack conducted an extensive analysis of home loans in Australia based on 2,25,001 online conversations. In this guide, we’ll run you through the researched Insights into Key Drivers of Customer Experience for home loans in Australia:

1. Flexibility

Home loan features are all about convenience and flexibility. Customers are demanding higher flexibility in repayment options and interest rates. They prefer banks to set rates based on customer credit history so as to take advantage of strong credit history. There are a number of first-time buyers and hence most of them expect encouragement from the bank by offering higher flexibility. 

2. Interest Rate

Numerous banks offer attractive interest rates to the advantage of home buyers. But customers are asking for a combination of options that allows them a better choice of interest rates. Home loans come with various interest rate options such as fixed-rate or flexible rates. Customers search for the best rates with floating options. They prefer to have a yearly review of the interest rates and renegotiate rates.

3. Fees

When a customer thinks of a home loan, generally the first thing that can put off a customer is the huge amount of fees and hidden charges. Consumers feel that there should be clarity on advertised versus the actual fees, along with a break up of various fees. Customers ask for low upfront fees and customized penalties based on repayment behavior.

4. Approvals

Customers switch to a new and faster loan provider when they witness a slow and unprofessional approval process. Customers find it hard to get instant approval from banks because of their lengthy verification procedure.  Customers want to move toward loan providers who can offer easy and quick approvals without any post-approval surprises and are also expecting zero-fee approvals. 

Home Loans Australia: Top 3 Delight Factors

1. Ratings

Buying a dream home is an important milestone in a person’s life and hence a customer spends a lot of time planning and comparing different options. With a wide variety of housing loans available in the market, a customer can be delighted when he has additional information in the form of builder and property ratings. If a borrower counseling provision is offered the customer would definitely feel good about it. Further customer is looking forward to different rates based on ratings.

2. Documentation

Extensive documentation that goes into getting a home loan approved is really something that scares a customer. Although the home loan application states the list of necessary documents required, customers are asking for ease in the documentation process. Also, it will be a great relief for customers if they are offered legal assistance during their home loan process.

3. Relationship Management

The importance of effective relationship management is key to customers. While the entire process of home loan approvals should be smooth, customers are looking forward to the banks offering excellent relationship management during and post the home loan approval process. They expect that they get assistance from personal relationship managers, financial counselors, documentation advisors, and reminder services for payments.