Outsourcing real estate tax services can benefit a bank or credit union in countless ways. The first step, of course, is choosing the right third-party vendor to partner with. There are many important considerations to explore when shopping for the right tax services company to partner with, including accuracy, customization options, price and more.
One aspect that you may not focus on during a vendor search is what the implementation process is like. This may seem secondary to critical components such as quality and price, but the onboarding process can set your institution up for success—or become the start of a rocky partnership. There is also a concern of how much implementation work is required on the part of the institution, which causes some lenders to delay (or even avoid) outsourcing altogether.
In this blog, we’ll discuss factors that foster a successful and easy implementation, and what to look for when evaluating real estate tax services vendors.
Critical components of a successful implementation
When partnering with a new real estate tax services vendor, it’s critical to start out on the right foot—and different vendors will offer different processes and levels of service when it comes to onboarding. There are several factors that can dictate the success and ease of your implementation process, which we’ll highlight below.
Division of work
A common concern when outsourcing real estate tax services is who will do the work. The whole goal of outsourcing is to relieve pressure from your loan servicing department and free up time for other tasks, so the last thing you want is a huge workload just to switch to a third-party provider. Ask about the exact onboarding process, and how much work is required of your staff. (Check out Info-Pro’s process—and who is responsible for each task—in this resource.)
Dedicated support
Make sure you have a dedicated team working with you, including a point person assigned to manage your entire implementation.
Customization
Ask how flexible a company’s implementation process is. Ideally, you want a vendor who will customize the process, timeline and other components to create an implementation process to fit your exact needs.
Data management/cleanup
A major aspect of onboarding a new partner and process is the providing of mortgage information from your core system. Look for a vendor who has experience with your core system, and offers data cleanup to ensure all your information is accurate and up-to-date.
Training
Training is an important part of partnering with a new vendor, so your staff understands the new process and how to use any software involved. Make sure that training is comprehensive, and also available for new staff in the future.
When you’re evaluating potential real estate tax services vendors, ask about each of these areas. A vendor should be able to explain exactly how they will make onboarding as smooth as possible for your institution.
The Info-Pro approach
When you partner with Info-Pro to handle your real estate tax tracking and delinquency monitoring, we take implementation very seriously. Our goal is to make the transition easy on your institution, with no disruption to the critical tasks at hand.
Learn more about Info-Pro’s onboarding process in this resource.
