3. Aussie Carnegie

In a sea of change, this brokerage is all about providing a friendly and familiar service to its customers

Glenn English’s favourite day to go to work is Saturday. That’s when he schedules fi ve to eight appointments and gets to do what he loves best: spend time with clients.

“It’s great. You don’t have to worry about the phone ringing because it’s fairly minimal on a Saturday. You don’t have to worry about dealing with the banks or dealing with the assessors or anything like that; it’s just face-to-face with clients,” he explains to MPA.

Thanks to Aussie Carnegie’s set-up, with two brokers and five support staff , English is able to spend quality time in front of clients or on the phone with them, and the firm’s conversion rate is a lot higher as a result, he says. The support staff are integral to the work behind the scenes, which is more important than ever now that changing lending requirements have doubled the amount of paperwork.

It also helps that three of them are accredited brokers, so they have a thorough understanding of the loan process and can readily respond to client questions.

As for English, it’s not uncommon for him to make up to 40 follow-up phone calls per day to check in on new and existing clients. “I keep ringing, but it’s not overbearing. I keep ringing until I get the deal, or to check in on settled clients to make sure things are still running smoothly for them,” he says.

English believes that consistency is key. Brokers build trust by being approachable and becoming familiar faces who clients want to deal with again. The idea is to give clients that friendly community experience that maybe their grandparents once had with their local bank branch manager, he says. “They don’t get that if they ring a call centre.”

English will celebrate 12 years at Aussie Carnegie in June. And he’s not the only one: another staff member has also reached that milestone. Many of the other employees have been around for at least fi ve years, which means staff and clients get to know each other by name.

“I think it’s really just the customer service and knowledge clients are looking for, and somebody who is going to treat them with respect and get the job done,” English says.

That will become increasingly important as the lending environment becomes tougher for brokers to work in, but English isn’t worried. He believes it will just make those brokers who already deliver excellent service stronger.

 “When they make all these changes, a lot of brokers fall off , so the guys who are still remaining get busier.”