Customer satisfaction in the mortgage industry is slipping — and the decline says a lot about the state of long-term relationships in this space. Mortgage satisfaction scores already trail best-in-class industries by 30% to 40%, but a closer look at different stages of the process reveals even more.
According to J.D. Power, overall satisfaction with mortgage originators was 727 (on a 1,000-point scale) in 2024, down 3 points from the year before. Mortgage servicing saw an even sharper drop, falling 10 points to 596 in 2025.
The contrast between the scores is telling: Homebuyers often start the mortgage process on a (relatively) high note. But after loan origination, the ongoing mortgage servicing experience doesn’t keep up. For mortgage businesses, that’s not just a customer service issue — it’s a client retention problem that impacts the bottom line.
In a competitive mortgage market, winning new customers is only half the battle. In this blog, we’ll look at why retention matters, what today’s customers expect and how mortgage companies can make lasting connections with the right client retention strategies.
Why Mortgage Customer Retention Matters
For mortgage companies, retaining customers can be just as valuable (if not more) than finding new ones. A strong customer experience not only boosts customer retention rates but can also drive repeat business and referrals. In fact, 40% of consumers begin their hunt for a mortgage by speaking to friends and family, making happy clients one of your best marketing tools.
Retention also builds lifetime value. When a customer comes back for their next mortgage or sends someone your way, that relationship is worth far more than a single deal. And while new customers definitely matter, they usually cost more to win than keep.
That’s why it’s important to deliver an experience that makes people want to stick around — and that starts with knowing exactly what today’s borrowers expect from you. Here are 3 things they’re looking for.
1. Easy Access to Information
When it comes to keeping borrowers happy, access to information is huge. In fact, 36% of consumers cited it as one of the top reasons they’d switch mortgage companies.
For most people today, “access” means online. For instance, McKinsey found that 60% of both purchase and refinance borrowers were open to completing their entire mortgage application online, without phone or in-person support. Other digital touchpoints, like user-friendly dashboards and self-service resources, also give customers the control and clarity they want, when they want it.
But access to information isn’t just about what’s online for them to find. It’s also about sharing what they might not know to look for. Take Mr. Cooper, which reached out to customers with a Personalized Video explaining their eligibility for cash-out refinancing options, complete with specific numbers from that borrower’s mortgage.
This kind of outreach builds trust by showing you’re transparent about every option. And it can strengthen retention by connecting borrowers with other loan products that meet their needs.
2. Communication That Resonates
Despite industry efforts to streamline messaging, most mortgage customers still aren’t feeling it. Only 31% gave an excellent or perfect rating to their servicer for messages that grabbed their attention. Similarly, just 32% gave their servicer a high overall communication score — a drop of 5 percentage points since 2022. Clearly, there’s room for improvement.
One way to stand out is through personalized experiences. Account alerts are the most common personalized touchpoint today, recalled by 46% of borrowers who received them. But to truly connect, mortgage professionals should go beyond the basics and personalize other communications, too.
For instance, Newrez contacted borrowers whose forbearance periods were ending with a video message that included details relevant to each viewer. Beyond being personalized, the videos were also interactive. Customers could quickly jump to the options they wanted to learn more about, streamlining the experience and making it feel tailored just for them.
Ultimately, when communications are timely, relevant and easy to act on, borrowers are less likely to wander and more likely to stay engaged.
3. Elevated Customer Service
We’ve saved perhaps the most important point for last: Better customer service is the top reason people switch mortgage companies, with 51% citing it. Yet many mortgage lenders have trimmed staffing, which has made delivering the highly personalized service that lifted satisfaction a few years ago harder to sustain.
Juggling convenience and personalization can be tough. Customers want the ease of online resources — but they also crave tailored support. Ideally, you would offer both. But since that can be costly, one smart option is to let customers serve themselves with dynamic content.
For example, a loan process explainer like the one below is way more engaging than your typical FAQ page and can provide answers without tying up your team. You can even make these videos interactive to let viewers customize their experience further.
But excellent customer service doesn’t just mean providing answers. It’s also connecting in meaningful ways. A quick congratulations video when someone closes their mortgage or hits a payoff milestone reinforces the relationship and keeps your brand top of mind.
Small, thoughtful messages like the one above add up. They boost satisfaction and make customers more likely to recommend you to friends and family, helping you bring in new clients and grow your customer base.
Meeting Demands and Delivering Wow Moments
If that all sounds incredibly complex, it doesn’t have to be. Our Next Generation Video Platform makes creating dynamic videos at scale effortless.
One easy example is sending a Personalized Video to each customer after closing escrow. It’s relatively simple to achieve incredibly high engagement levels at this critical moment in the customer journey. A recent campaign we did with one of the leading lenders in the U.S. illustrates this. It saw incredibly high engagement, including an 86% video completion rate and 70% CTR. And it also wowed viewers, shown by the many posts about it on social media. An added perk? They got an 11% drop in support call volume from customers.
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Speaking of easy, AI makes creating your video even faster. With Lucas AI Video Creator, mortgage companies can produce on-brand videos in minutes using simple prompts or document uploads, significantly cutting down production time and cost.
And consumers are all for it. Our latest study found that they’re 2x as likely to prefer receiving an AI video generated from a document than the document itself, making it a powerful tool for capturing attention and boosting customer engagement.
If you’re curious about this topic, we wrote a whole post about ways mortgage companies can use AI.
It’s a win on all fronts and a painless entry into the world of engaging, real-time marketing.
The Bottom Line
The key to improving retention is consistently meeting borrowers on their own terms. This means providing communication that is individually relevant, on-demand, visually-driven and available across channels.
Few strategies can impact the bottom line as much as strengthening the customer relationship. The customer journey must be personalized and involve real-time interactions that are tailored to each customer and, where possible, deliver true wow moments that leave a lasting impression.
Next Generation Video makes it easy for mortgage companies to check all of these proverbial boxes with one easy-to-implement communication strategy. It’s a powerful way to build long-term relationships, improve customer retention rates and turn satisfied borrowers into advocates. Reach out today to see how our platform can help.
