Better.com Unveils Betsy, The First Voice-Based AI Loan Assistant

The mortgage industry seems destined for a technology upgrade as the competition between fintech lenders heats up, each one racing to establish an “all-in-one” or “one-stop-shop” platform for loan officers — often with some shiny AI feature to capture people's attention. The latest development comes from Better Home & Finance Holding Company (Better.com), announcing the launch of an industry-first voice-based AI Loan Assistant, Betsy.

Betsy, the AI Loan Assistant, is a feature built through Better.com’s proprietary platform, Tinman. The all-in-one platform, Tinman, combines the many datasets LOs touch day-to-day such as Point of Sale (POS), Customer Relationship Management (CRM), Loan Origination System (LOS), Document Management System, and Pricing Engine. Its main differentiator, though, is Betsy, which was built to enhance the operational efficiency of Better.com’s licensed Loan Officers, Processors, and, Closers and improves its customer experience with timely, accurate answers to customer’s inquiries on an instant basis. 

“Chatbots don't work,” said Better.com CEO Vishal Garg. “We've tried chatbots before and fundamentally consumers get tired of not being able to get a proper response to the inquiry that they have. They give up on chatbots. We knew that we had to really move the industry forward and build an AI voice assistant that is going to engage with consumers in a conversational way, and is fast.”

The AI platform is programmed to communicate with prospective and existing Better.com clients to answer application inquiries and collect outstanding application data. Garg explained that Betsy works like an auto dialer, following up on leads generated through LendingTree.  

“It enables us to contact the consumer as soon as they submit their information to us or as soon as we get the information from one of our marketing partners like LendingTree or any of our other big marketing partners,” Garg said. “So the data that we did not get from LendingTree, [Betsy] is able to go out and get that information. Then, basically, it's able to… get the consumer on board with a loan officer who can then have the conversation about rates and terms that only a licensed loan officer is able to have.” 

Garg played a recording of a fake customer interacting with Betsy on the phone, in which she introduced herself saying “Hello, this is Betsy, a virtual assistant with Better Mortgage, a trusted partner of LendingTree calling on a recorded line. Is this [Mr.] Smith?” Then, immediately gets to the point by stating, “Great to meet you. I'm calling about your recent interest in a home equity line of credit on LendingTree.” 

Listen to the call:

The biggest benefit to the loan officer is that Betsy allows them to cut down on time spent responding to leads in their pipeline, collecting missing data, or organizing client documents. Because it's plugged into the all-in-one Tinman platform, where all the loan information is kept, Betsy should recall every detail of a borrower’s loan profile.

“The loan officer then doesn't have to spend their time chasing that information,” Garg explained. “They can spend their time focusing on helping customers with product, terms, rates and things that are more meaty.” 

While the market is slow, loan officers continue to make a living by looking for either higher compensation per loan or, simply, more loans. Fintech companies, like Better.com, typically provide the latter option, since increased efficiency could boost the number of loans produced per month. 

“Last year, the average Better.com loan officer was doing 17 loans a month,” Garg said. “Now that's possible through efficiency and technology and we want to take that number even higher right. And that's really our motto is, you know, we're going to increase the total amount of money that loan officers make by enabling them to do more loans.” 

The focus on technology is also making the company more sustainable. Rather than having to constantly hire staff and lay them off every few years to accommodate for demand, Better.com relies on its technology to handle 80% of the labor involved in originating loans, Garg said. 

“The average cost to sell and process a mortgage in the United States is nearly $9,000 per loan,” said Kevin Ryan, CFO of Better.com. “Utilizing Tinman’s capabilities, we have been able to automate time and labor-intensive components of the mortgage process and reduce that cost by over 35% of the industry average. As we continue to supplement Betsy’s capabilities, we believe this technology will significantly drive down our costs further, resulting in lowered rates and superior service for our customers.”