Listen to this articleUnlike other mortgage business intelligence systems, X-Ray was created by long-time mortgage banking professionals from Roseville, California based company Special Agent X. X-Ray is a digital dashboard that transforms massive amounts of data warehoused in a variety of different systems into easy-to-understand analytics and reports that drive top-level decisions at mortgage branches/companies. Below is our interview with Dustin Sheppard, CEO of Special Agent X:
Q: Dustin, where did the concept of Special Agent X begin?
A: It started in my own mortgage branch. I was tired of spending 15 to 20 hours per week sifting through huge spreadsheets so that I could get an idea of where my business was at. My team and I were going loan by loan on spreadsheets, which means copying, pasting, recalculating and meeting with various departments to try to get projections and loan status updates. One day, I had just had enough and decided that there had to be a better way. The concept for X-Ray was born.
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Q: Could you explain the function and advantages of your mortgage business intelligence system, X-Ray?
A: X-Ray is a digital dashboard that transforms massive amounts of data warehoused in a variety of different systems into easy-to-understand, easily accessible analytics and reports that drive top-level decisions. A lot of mortgage businesses rely on outdated information to make business decisions because they are working with multiple data platforms that don’t interface. This leads to spending too much time and money on data collection and reporting. X-Ray pulls information on leads and accounting, as well as information from customer relationship management systems and loan operating systems, into one understandable digital dashboard. If you know how to use a tablet, you can use X-Ray.
Q: When did you realize that X-Ray could be used for every mortgage branch manager?
A: Well, the first version of X-Ray that we created for my mortgage branch was hideous. It was a dashboard that was in this ugly pink color, but it worked and it allowed me to view the status of my branch from anywhere. So I would be at industry events and meetings and people would be looking over my shoulder and asking me what I was looking at. I told them I was looking at my mortgage branch and they would respond with, “Well, how do I get that?” That is when I knew that this could be used across the industry.
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Q: You have said that X-Ray could disrupt the mortgage industry. Can you elaborate on that?
A: As I mentioned, too many mortgage businesses are chained to their spreadsheets. That means that not only the manager is spending hours going through them, but a lot of staff hours are spent on this as well. Once a branch is released from the chains of old loan status reporting it is quite exhilarating. The mortgage industry is more open to technology now than it is has been before and what X-Ray brings to the table is time-savings and a way to streamline your business – so it can certainly disrupt the industry.
Q: Do you think the mortgage industry is in need of disruption?
A: With all of the compliance and data security factors in the mortgage industry, technology adoption and disruption can be a tough venture. It is a production industry and many look at it like, “if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it.” So bringing in something new can sometimes feel like changing a flat tire on a bus that is going 80 miles per hour down the freeway. But once you track your data properly and it shows you where you are making errors on a consistent basis, and gives you proper forecasts that help your business run more smoothly, you will see how this is the type of technology you have been missing out on all along.
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Q: So if a mortgage branch manager wanted to implement X-Ray in their office, what would the pricing look like?
A: X-Ray, which is a cloud-based solution, allows mortgage loan professionals access to powerful analytics for the cost of one user seat – $39 per month. The cycle time for a typical implementation is approximately two weeks. Current solutions are not cloud-based and can cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention that they take months to implement.
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Q: And a few mortgage companies are already using X-Ray, right?
A: Yes, Big Valley Mortgage, American Pacific Mortgage Securus Group, AP Connect, Vitek Mortgage Group, Cobalt Real Estate and West Coast Mortgage Group.
Q: You recently launched, what are your plans for the next year?
A: Our plans for the next year will be to focus on growing our customer base while continually improving on the user experience. We are also currently working on a couple other “top secret” tools for our customers that could come to the marketplace in 2017, so make sure you check out specialagentx.com for updates. Also, if you want to know how to increase the efficiency of your mortgage branch, make sure you download our White Paper.
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