PIONEERS OF PROCESS
Fannie Mae Success Story
Background Situation
"The escalations were coming faster than anyone could log emails. We could not hire people fast enough to log the emails and phone calls and respond to them." It was 2009 and the US Housing Market was in deep crisis following the market plunge and subsequent loan defaulting. Kim Morris took over the escalations (customer inquiries) department as a new director to manage the volumes and influx of requests from all sources. Fannie Mae hired Clarifire to develop an Inquiry Resolution Engine. Kim knew the project had to be immediately re-scoped to meet the demands of the current situation. Quickly!
Kim Morris — Prior Director, National Servicing Organization, Fannie Mae
We had a mission.
We had a responsibility to our customers to provide them with best-in-class service in the face of this chaotic recession and housing crisis.
We had a fiscal responsibility within Fannie Mae to keep costs from skyrocketing.
When I took over the department we had no tracking of communications, progress, or amount of work in the queue. We had no way to measure how long it took to complete our processes or how efficiently we were working them. There was no real workflow, no organization, and all cases were handled through an email inbox. The whole system was manual and could not scale to the enormity of the situation.
Clarifire brought me hope in the midst of chaos and helped me organize the process with the ability to track and see real-time progress.
- Kim Morris
Prior Director, National Servicing Organization, Fannie Mae
I found a trusted partner.
The Clarifire team (every one of them) listened —I mean really listened — and took to heart what I was saying about our immediate needs. I knew by the end of the meeting I had a partner, not just a vendor supplying me with a product, and that together we were a team trying to solve the problem the best way possible. It was clear they understood my situation and how quickly it needed to turn around and they had long-standing industry and workflow expertise to back it up.
Not only did they listen but they took my suggestions on how to make the solution better and worked their magic. All the while letting me know this wasn't a problem and that their efforts would be redirected to solve my issues. I have to say as a woman — this doesn't always happen with vendors — especially technology vendors.
From the beginning the Clarifire team worked hand-in-hand with me. The staff listened and made everything happen, timely and without hesitation. It was clear that the Clarifire team understood the dire landscape and was quick to react with rapid prototyping and the ability to make quick changes during the QA, UAT and deployment phases. We were able to move forward with rapid implementation.
I never had to worry about any issue.
And it didn’t stop there. Clarifire has unparalleled dedication to customer service. I never had to worry about any issue. I would pick up the phone and was immediately able to speak to a live person who was always able to help provide an answer or solution. Even in the very rare instance when I needed to leave a message, the call was promptly returned with an answer to the issue or an assurance that it would be researched and resolved shortly.
The CLARIFIRE® solution, backed by the dedicated team, brought us the ability to estimate how many cases/inquiries could be handled by current staff and provided us an auditable data stream to justify headcount. It allowed us to view employee performance and track workflow in real time. We were able to reduce staff by 20% while greatly increasing time to process.
With the CLARIFIRE® solution we gained the ability to service our customers, efficiently, cost-effectively, and with a sense of urgency during trying times.