You’ve worked hard to help your small business customers through the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) loan process – and you’ll need to work equally hard to help them navigate forgiveness. Now is the perfect opportunity to create a positive experience and maintain, or gain, a loyal customer. So how can you provide exceptional customer service through the entire PPP loan forgiveness process? Here are a few things to consider:
1. Set your foundation in education
Educate your internal team.
The PPP loan forgiveness process is new to everyone, and your customers will be looking to you and your team to answer their questions. With information coming in from all sides, your customers will be looking to your organization for knowledge and guidance. Set up a communication plan for your internal staff that includes FAQs, important links, and training for any technology you might be using. This plan should cover multiple communication channels, including a way to quickly disseminate any new information so your team can stay up to date.
Create an education plan for your borrowers.
Once your team is armed with the right information, work on a communications plan for your customers. Create resources for them, including FAQs, articles, and videos. Right now, PPP loan forgiveness is just one piece of managing their business, so make the content as clear, complete, and concise as you can.
2. Build rapport with constant communication
Consistently update your borrowers with any new information.
Educating your customers should be part of a larger communication strategy built on a constant flow of relevant information. When your customers hear from you consistently, they know you truly care about their business, they see you as an authority, and they’ll be far more likely to do business with you in the future.
Clearly identify where your borrowers are in the process.
Take your cue from online shopping. With most online retailers, you can see when your order is fulfilled, when it ships, and when it will be delivered. Borrowers want the same kind of transparency in their loan forgiveness process. For many businesses, forgiveness is an essential piece of staying open. Give them the ability to see where their loan is in the process, ideally without having to directly contact a member of your team.
3. Structure the process to flow smoothly throughout
Set up your system to easily import and export information.
The PPP loan applications need a large amount of information. The more of that information you can easily import into the loan forgiveness application and export out, the better. Automate as much of the information gathering as you possibly can to make the process seamless for your team and your customers.
Not only will this save your team precious time, but it will help avoid introducing errors through manual entry.
Make sure you have workflows to both assign and adjust tasks.
Chances are, you have a variety of people working on each loan forgiveness application. A thorough checklist helps your teams make sure nothing falls through cracks. You’ll also want the ability to see the entire workflow so everyone knows where each piece of information is throughout the process.
Looking for a seamless way to implement these ideas?
Check out our PPP Loan Forgiveness Platform for Lenders.
We also have deep expertise in process, risk management, compliance, and fraud. Contact us to find out more about how we put that expertise to work when it comes to PPP.
