On September 17th the industry moved one step closer to a consumer controlled social network based lead generation process. It was more of a baby step, but none the less a step forward.
On Septmeber 17th a company named SmartHippo released their public beta version. SmartHippo allows users to compare rates and feedback with other users that have a similar criteria.
“SmartHippo allows any individual to post information and feedback on the rate they received, and to compare rates with other members of the community with similar profiles. This lessens the chance of consumers with the same lending and risk profile getting different rates on the same loan, which can happen currently.”
“Consumers need services like the one SmartHippo has developed,” said Gary Lewis Evans, President & CEO at Bank of Internet USA. “Competition is always good, and SmartHippo’s social network will allow banks to promote products while providing consumers with the opportunity to validate and or challenge the offerings by pointing out the hidden negatives.”
The rates on SmartHippo are posted by its users and participating banks like Quicken Loans and Bank of Internet. The site gives you the ability to input your specific situation, such as credit score, equity, loan amount, etc and compare your offered rate to users rates with the same criteria. SmartHippo is also a lead generation company and if user choose they can also have up to four brokers call them. I have put in a few calls and once I receive a call back I will pass along the information to you, as far as pricing. I will also try to extract more information about their user base on the call.
As a broker you are able to post your own rates, similar to BankRate, view what rates users are claiming to have received from you and also track your competitors.
What does everyone think about SmartHippo? Do any of you see pitfalls or benefits of a platform like this?
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Baby steps is how I view this offering. I don’t see the transparency, my personal financial information is still being sold as a commodity on the LeadPoint network thanks to their partnership with SecureRights. This site is nothing new. There are plenty of other sites out there that “match” you to 4 lenders (and by match I mean which ever lender pays the most for your lead)
Basically all this site does is use the latest 2.0 buzz words to garnish interest. Big deal that I can use a fancy button to vote on a users profile. LendingTree has allowed consumers to rate banks since its inception (see: http://www.lendingtree.com/stm3/lenders/scorecard.asp).
Where is the control? Where is my power?
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This is interesting concept, we will have to wait and see if consumers actually use it, though.
Consumer Control,
I think the transparency is in the fact that you can find out what other people are receiving for rates and I think that is what they are focusing on. The ability to rate banks and opt for brokers to call you of course is nothing new, but it looks as though that is not the focus of SmartHippo. I think it really give users the chance to shop rates without forking over all the info.
You may want to look a little further into the platform to answer your questions. Which it doesn’t seem you have done.
Now I must say I have never used the product so maybe wrong.
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Sounds like a great idea. My worry is that whenever you have a purely rate-driven play, you leave the door open for the bait and switch tactics that helped get the industry into the condition we are presently in. Transparency will the the counter to this, but it still just runs the risk of being the Bankrate 2.0 as ConsumerControl mentioned. There needs to be a heavy consumer-education piece in order for this model to truly be effective, I think. But I will certainly take a closer look.
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Sometimes consumers don’t know what they really got even after they’ve closed. I think consumer-to-consumer info. would be muddy at best and those looking for information will be much more willing to share than those who’ve already closed.
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ConsumerControl, I won’t bore the Leadcritic readership with a complete response to your comment, since they can find it on other blogs where you’ve posted the same criticism verbatim. I realize you are plugging your upcoming trustedoffer.com service, but please take the time to really look at what we’re doing before commenting. I look forward to seeing what you will launch, and if it gives consumers more control, I will be the first to applaud.
John, I fully agree that bait and switch tactics have been a major contributor to the current problems we’re seeing. Because we let users and banks post rates according to specific loan criteria (including credit score and LTV ratio), we expect that when banks report rates to us they will not bait and switch. The ones who do will get negative feedback from the community, so this creates an incentive for them not to.
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Why would consumers want to post their rate quotes? What would prevent lenders from posing as consumers and posting bogus information?
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I guess some people will want to post rates and some other won’t. I believe it’s a matter of participation. The same way a portion of people write reviews on Amazon and the majority simply use them. I guess it doesn’t take that many people to make such a system work.
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