Mortgage clients who disappear after the quote

Aug 29
3 min read

Updated: 2 days ago

Introduction

An adviser spends an hour on a fact find, produces recommendations, sends them over and hears nothing. Two follow-up emails go unanswered. The case is written off as a client who went elsewhere, and the adviser concludes that their fees are uncompetitive.

Sometimes that is true. Far more often the purchase fell through, the client's circumstances changed, they did not understand what to do next, or they were waiting for something and assumed the adviser knew. The silence is usually not a decision at all, and treating it as one loses cases that were never lost. The adviser draws a conclusion about their fees from evidence that says nothing about fees.

1. Mortgage clients who disappear after the quote have usually stalled

Distinguish stalling from choosing.

A client who selected another adviser has made a decision; a client whose purchase collapsed has simply stopped. The two look identical from your side and require completely different responses.

2. Establish the timeline before you finish the meeting

The step that prevents most of it.

What stage the purchase is at, what has to happen next, who else is involved and when they expect to proceed. An adviser who knows the client is waiting on a survey next month is not confused by four weeks of silence.

3. Tell them exactly what happens next

Uncertainty produces inaction.

What you need from them, what you will do, how long each stage takes and when you will next be in contact. Clients frequently do nothing because they are unsure whether it is their turn to act.

4. Agree the next contact before you part

Never leave it open.

A specific date, agreed rather than promised vaguely. This makes follow-up expected rather than intrusive and removes the awkwardness that stops advisers chasing properly.

5. Follow up more than twice

Persistence is not pressure.

Two emails is not a follow-up sequence. Several contacts across different channels, over weeks, recover a meaningful proportion of cases, and clients are frequently apologetic rather than irritated. Most people who go quiet know they have and feel awkward about it.

6. Ask directly whether something has changed

Better than a chase.

A message asking whether the purchase is still going ahead invites an easy reply, where a request for outstanding documents does not. It also produces the honest answer that lets you close the case or revive it.

7. Recognise the affordability silence

The most common unspoken reason.

Clients who discover they can borrow less than they hoped frequently withdraw rather than say so. Raising this possibility yourself, without embarrassment, brings back people who were too uncomfortable to explain.

8. Keep stalled cases rather than closing them

They convert later.

A purchase that collapsed will be replaced by another within months, and the client already trusts you. A dormant list, contacted periodically, is one of the better sources of business available to an adviser.

9. Measure where cases actually stop

The pattern is fixable.

At what stage cases go quiet, and how many recover. If most disappear after the recommendation is sent, the problem is in how that is delivered and explained rather than in the pricing.

Ask a few of the ones who genuinely went elsewhere why they did. The answers are usually about speed, clarity or feeling looked after rather than fees, which is useful precisely because those are within your control and the fee is largely not.

Conclusion

Treat silence as a stall rather than a decision, because it usually is one.

Establish the purchase timeline before the meeting ends, explain precisely what happens next and whose turn it is to act, agree a specific date for the next contact, follow up several times across different channels, ask directly whether something has changed, raise affordability yourself because clients will not, keep stalled cases on a list and contact them periodically, measure the stage at which cases go quiet, and ask the genuine losses why they chose somebody else.