Why does The Openwork Partnership sponsor the Rated for Service Awards? When I wrote my submission for last year’s awards supplement, I said that I hoped 2023 would provide a more stable operating environment for brokers than 2022. That was clearly wishful thinking, as it turned out to be another year of massive change.

Given this backdrop, understanding broker priorities, recognising service excellence and identifying opportunities to drive forward industry standards remain critical. That is exactly what Rated for Service is trying to achieve. The survey is also unique in that it provides data from across the UK industry, including large and small producers, specialist and generalists, directly authorised advisers and appointed representatives.

The Openwork Partnership is therefore proud to sponsor the awards again. We will ensure that within our regular lender review meetings we are talking through the results, celebrating successes, but also holding feet to the fire of the lenders that have the most work to do to deliver excellence for brokers.

Overall, what do you think of the results? I’m really pleased. 2023 was another tough year for everyone, so the fact that more advisers than last time participated in the survey and more lenders were recognised as either Top Rated or Rated has to be a good outcome for advisers and clients.

Are there any areas that you would highlight as most positive? The scores improved in most areas, which is testament to the effort that lenders have put in to improving their propositions. This is particularly true in underwriting and case processing, which pleasingly saw the strongest improvement. The fact that the highest scores overall were in Strategic Focus is also reassuring as it implies that brokers are recognising the importance lenders are placing on the intermediary sector.

Are there any areas where the industry hasn’t moved forward? Two areas stood out. First, BTL, where the scores for eight of the nine Top Rated lenders fell back, whereas seven of the eight Rated lenders improved. Market conditions in BTL were tough in 2023, but the results imply that there is more work to do if the Top Rated players want to retain their crown next year. The second area that stood out in terms of scores going backwards was technology. It is hard to pin down the reasons for that, but the verbatims suggest only limited progress was made by lenders with older technology.

With the Consumer Duty and the Mortgage Charter to contend with, I suspect IT resources were also diverted from improving the adviser experience. Hopefully that will change in the year ahead.

What are the most valuable survey outputs? The quantitative scores are hugely valuable as they provide lenders with benchmark performance data, so that they can assess how they are performing versus their peers. However, for me, the most valuable information is the insights provided by brokers in their verbatim comments, as it’s these that provide the context for the scores and make the numbers come alive. Brokers provided almost 1,200 verbatims, of which 54% were positive and 46% negative. The ratio of positive to negative comments is also an interesting barometer of broker sentiment, with the strongest-performing lenders generating a ratio of 9:1 in favour of positive comments, and the weakest a ratio of 9:1 in favour of negatives. That’s a goldmine of insight for lenders to get their teeth into!

Click here to see all of the results

From next week, Mortgage Strategy will publish the MFG Rated for Service Awards supplement, with all the results and analysis available in both print and digital formats.