"Many are fed up with the pandemic being used as an excuse for poor service or slow processes."
The survey also reported a surge in dissatisfaction with speed of response and customer service. The rating for lender communication saw the second largest fall – down 5.3% against H1 2020.
Overall satisfaction with lenders is now 77.8%, a drop of 4.9% since H1 2020, and is the lowest score reported since tracking began in H2 2018.
This drop is seen across all sectors, except for specialist lenders, whose performance remained consistent with H1 2020.
However, a third of lenders have improved their overall rating, indicating that some were able to build on their relationship with brokers during the pandemic.
Building societies remain the highest overall rated sector, despite seeing the greatest decline in scores, although banks now outperform them across several areas.
The top bank was voted as Halifax, the top specialist lender Fleet Mortgages, and the top lifetime lender went to Pure Retirement.
Speed to process an application remains the most commented upon theme in the report and it has the biggest impact on a broker’s likelihood to recommend a lender. The rating for speed saw the biggest fall and is down from 75.8% to 67.2%, highlighting broker annoyance.
One broker in the report commented: “Service levels are huge. Currently 23 working days to complete initial assessment of an application. No response from the BDM to my emails. Hold wait for processing centre is over an hour.”
As well as speed, online systems remain a key influence and feedback is very mixed across the market. The report found that positive sentiment towards a lender's online systems led brokers to be more positive about other aspects of a lender’s process including ease and communication.
Customer service has risen to third in the list of reasons not to recommend a lender, and the report saw skills and knowledge enter the list of detractors, which had the strongest negative impact when it was mentioned. The lack of knowledge of staff, which may be symptomatic of more frequent product and policy changes in H2 2020, was an issue for brokers.
Overall satisfaction with first-time buyer and home mover cases fell the most, by 7.1% and 6.8% respectively, with speed and communication again being the main points mentioned.
Jacqueline Dewey, CEO of Smart Money People, commented: “The latest edition of our Mortgage Lender Benchmark shows that brokers are becoming dissatisfied with lender performance in reaction to Covid-19.
“Many are fed up with the pandemic being used as an excuse for poor service or slow processes.
“Despite the difficulties faced in the market this year, some lenders have continued to outshine their competition. A third of all lenders in our report have seen an increase in their overall rating. We found lenders who performed well in comparison with H1 2020 were particularly strong around customer service. Lenders whose overall rating fell often did well around product range and rates, but very poorly for speed.”
