Liberty Title eliminated the strain of post-closing work by switching to PropLogix from another lien release tracking company. Read further into the customer case study and watch the Liberty Title success story.
A Quick Profile:
- Company Type: Independent Title Agency
- PropLogix service used: Release Tracking
- How they order: Through the PropLogix + ResWare Integration
- A PropLogix customer since Spring 2018
About Liberty Title
Liberty Title is a Michigan-based, independent agency backed by five different underwriters. After opening their doors in 1974, the company has seen steady growth and now spans across 12 offices throughout the state. They’re able to differentiate themselves among other title agencies by remaining an independent agency with six attorneys on staff.
A history with Lien Release Tracking
Liberty Title’s Executive Vice President, Teresa Stuenkel says the company has been officially doing lien release tracking for the last four years. Before then, they were often running into issues appearing on title that slowed down the closing process. Area manager, Lisa Simon, says with the number of transactions they were handling, they just didn’t have the resources to consistently follow up with mortgage satisfactions and releases. They knew they needed a post-closing solution to clean up future problems before they became problems. Lien Release Tracking was the answer.
A less than ideal experience with a prior vendor
The company began working with a different vendor, which was one of “maybe a couple of companies” that offered the services at that time, according to Teresa. She said that the relationship started out strong, but she feels like they quickly lost the vendor’s attention after they became customers. Not only that, but Teresa said it was frustrating to pay for the service and still frequently have to fix issues that were left behind by their vendor. “It became a struggle to do business with them,” she said.
From the perspective of a closer working directly with the vendor, Amy Innes said that placing orders was “not user-friendly” and often a cumbersome experience.
Melissa Skamiera, Liberty’s business process manager, echos Amy’s perspective, saying the process of working with their previous lien release tracking vendor was never easy. In her position as the business process manager, she is always looking to streamline her colleague’s workflow and that working with them was a challenge. “It was a seven-step process, it would pile up on their desk, and they hated it. It was kind of like a thorn in our side.” Communication was also a problem with their previous vendor.
“It sounds kind of petty, but we weren’t getting any attention at all, so it was easy to make the switch,” said Melissa.
Introduction to working with PropLogix
Melissa says what originally struck her was how PropLogix was willing to accommodate Liberty Title to receive orders for the Release Tracking service in whatever way was easiest for them. She was able to work directly with PropLogix Business Development Manager, Chip Carlton, to ensure the custom solution fit their needs. Around the time that Liberty switched to PropLogix for Release Tracking, they had made the switch to the closing software provider, ResWare. Melissa says she was quickly able to implement the existing PropLogix/ResWare integration and make it so that within a couple clicks, an email was sent to PropLogix along with the title commitment and payment.
Finding success with PropLogix Release Tracking
Lisa Simon appreciates how easy the process is now with PropLogix: “It’s a simple email at the end of a transaction letting PropLogix know that we’re done, here is a copy of our title commitment, the check is on the way and that’s the end of it. There really isn’t any more interaction and that’s the way we like it,” she said.
Closer Amy Innes says that by comparison, the experience with PropLogix is user-friendly and above all else, communication is easy and issues are addressed promptly. She’s never had an issue with a client questioning the fee at closing. She also feels an added peace of mind that when a file is closed, there will be no surprises down the road.
“We like to close a file and then not really touch it again, so it’s been awesome to partner with them and just be able to know that it’s going to happen and be able to move on with our day,” said Melissa.
Delivering a better client experience
Lisa says the best thing she sees with the release tracking, above making the post-closing process easier for her team, is the extra assurance for their customers. She says that they are ultimately a customer service organization expected to give good service, but that in order to give complete service, they want to make sure the mortgage is paid off and the lien is discharged and that customer never has to look back once the settlement is finalized at the closing table. She says partnering with PropLogix gives them that ability.
“We ensure the customer’s title and I’m not sure that they always know what that means, but they certainly know that we’re responsible for paying off their biggest debt, which is their existing mortgage. We insure that we’re going to do that, however we don’t have a lot of control over ensuring that that lien actually gets released and so it’s nice that we now have the ability to offer the customer that additional peace of mind.” — Lisa Simon
