Rural 1st Brings Seamless Efficiency to Customer Relationships and Lending with Built

Technology adoption has enabled the team at Rural 1st® to enhance the customer experience. Rural 1st® benefits from having digital tools at their fingertips and can now build upon relationships, secure additional business, and work efficiently during the pandemic by using Built.

As a high-volume business helping customers achieve their dreams of country living, Rural 1st® Loan Officers previously spent hours each day managing construction loan projects manually to ensure every task was being completed according to schedule. Even as the 2020 pandemic struck, their business was experiencing rapid growth and needed to find a way to scale and grow. Thanks to Built, Rural 1st® was able to reduce time spent on-site, allowing team members to spend more time maintaining borrower relationships—even in a remote environment.

Thanks to Built, more borrowers and builders are turning to Rural 1st® for their rural lending needs. Meanwhile, team members have more time to focus on enhancing the customer experience and maintaining personal relationships with their customers.

Empowered by Built and Inspection Services, Rural 1st® has gained operational efficiencies by offering remote inspection capabilities at the borrowers’ convenience. Borrowers are able to take ownership of the building process by taking inspection photos and sending them to the inspector via Built when it’s most convenient for them. Saving both Borrower and Rural 1st® Loan Officers time while verifying project progress.

Rural 1st® Loan Officer Colton Ellis shares how he’s seen increased visibility benefit the projects he is a part of, “Built allows me to hop right into the middle of the project and see everything involved—without having to drive two hours to do it.” Not only has it helped to streamline the inspection process, but the overall flow of construction process is improved with a reduction in turnaround time. In the close out of 2020, Rural 1st® exceeded 1000 draws in just one month.

Linsey Watson, Director of Operations, shares “We’re confident in expanding what we’re offering because we have Built behind us.” Linsey and team have worked closely with Built to develop best practices for staffing models and team structure, in addition to thorough process review, and changes to scale to meet their growing needs. Linsey continues, “We are consistently evolving and having that conversation with Built on how to get better together. So it’s not only the relationship with our borrowers, it’s also our relationship with Built, to continue to offer the best product within our market.”

Rural 1st® team members and clients love using Built. Linsey shares, “Builders enjoy Built so much when they use it that they now want to use us because we offer it as an option.” Time saved through utilizing Built has equipped Rural 1st® Loan Officers with more time back in their days to focus on what really matters—serving rural communities and helping borrowers finance their dream home.