Demetris streamlines its customer data processes with My D-Hub

Jan 20, 2022
  • people
  • sales, marketing and service
  • data

Demetris was founded in 2000 and has since been part of the BNP Paribas Group as a subsidiary of BNP Paribas Fortis. The mediator in mortgage credit specializes in realizing mortgage loans from BNP Paribas Fortis. For this, Demetris works together with more than 900 mortgage brokers across Belgium, through three commercial offices and five commercial representatives. In order to make their internal collaboration processes more efficient and digital, Demetris partnered with delaware to optimize their use of the digital workplace and centralize their customer data into one easy-to-access platform, called my D-Hub.

Digitizing internal collaboration

The main challenge for Demetris was to digitize their internal working processes. Before the implementation of their new digital workplace, employees were used to working a lot with paper documents or doing their daily tasks with online tools that were dispersed over various interfaces. 

This way of working also had an impact on the management of customer data. Communications between the Demetris offices and their brokers were primarily done via email or phone, and digital copies of case files often had to be printed out and scanned back in, to process and store them correctly. This meant Demetris employees lacked a clear, global overview of each customer’s case file, and they had no uniform way of communicating or collaborating with their brokers.

Dirk Lievens, Support & IT Manager at Demetris: “Demetris chose delaware to help tackle these challenges because we already had a positive, ongoing working relationship, and the proposal of delaware was the most professional, down-to-earth and business-oriented one in comparison with other competitors.”

Agile implementation process

The first objective of this implementation project was to identify the pain points that the solution should fix through several functional workshops with the customer. Benoit Loffet, Data Science & Engineering Manager at delaware: “We based these discussions on mock-ups and basic visual screens we made of the future tool, which we were already tuning to the specific business needs of Demetris. This flexible and agile way of working allowed us to incorporate additional requests and concepts on-the-go, while being able to immediately show what we were implementing during the different sprints. Additionally, we could ask Demetris employees to test and approve parts of the solution while we were building it.”

Dirk: “This way of collaborating has been a positive experience for us from start to finish. Apart from the implementation itself, we learned a lot from the way delaware sets up a project of this size. The manner in which they structured the workshops, incorporated our feedback and documented every solution and best practice along the way, was a real eye-opener. Even when Covid-19 hit, we had little to no time-loss while working from home, and every step in the project was easily managed and implemented remotely.” 

Benoit fully agrees: “I’m quite proud of how we were able to maintain the ambiance in the team with frequent virtual contact and get the results we wanted, all while seeing the customer only sporadically in person for over two years.”

the first feedback from employees and brokers is very positive: the communication is faster, brokers have an instant overview on each case file, and the collaboration has become more efficient
Dirk Lievens, Support & IT Manager at Demetris

My D-Hub: central collaboration point for employees and brokers

The solution to both of Demetris’ challenges came in the form of a centralized dashboard that could incorporate all the information of a customer case file in one easy-to-manage overview. My D-Hub was born and provided Demetris employees and brokers alike with the means to collaborate efficiently on shared mortgage loan cases.

Benoit: “Through this central, online tool, employees and brokers can share, collect, manage and communicate on all necessary mortgage loan documents for one particular customer. And all of this from one location that they can access from anywhere, at any time. This way, it improves the speed and efficiency of all internal processes and proves to brokers and customers that Demetris is a digital leader in its market.” 

Apart from creating the solution, it was of utmost importance that the employees and brokers of Demetris also approved of this change and supported its development. That is why it was crucial to incorporate change management into the implementation process. Dirk: “The info sessions prepared by the Change management team at delaware were key to the whole project. By selecting and training specific Demetris ambassadors, instead of focusing on classical trainings, the implementation of My D-Hub was widely and more easily accepted.” 

Faster and simpler case file management

My D-Hub went live at the end of September 2021 in the Demetris office of Namur, followed by the general go-live on December 1st, 2021.

Dirk: “The first feedback we received from employees and brokers in Namur was very positive. The communication on case files is now faster and more straightforward, brokers have an instant overview on each case file, and the collaboration between Demetris and brokers has become more efficient. As a result, email traffic has decreased drastically, just like the management time for each case file, which now takes up 1/3rd less. On top of that, the number of uploaded documents to the platform has increased greatly, which speaks volumes on the widespread use of the platform.”

Benoit: “Especially the brokers seem impressed with the benefits of My D-Hub. They gain a lot of time because the platform guides them through the steps they need to do for a particular case, and it improves the validation time of requests by automatically notifying Demetris employees when a request is made. My D-Hub also makes it possible to manage mortgage loan cases from home and store them digitally when they have been closed and submitted to BNP Paribas Fortis.”

What’s next?

Benoit: “After the general go-live of My D-Hub, delaware will keep supporting the current out-roll, while enhancing the tool along the way with new dashboard components, management incentives and additional digitized processes.” 

Dirk: “The collaboration with delaware has always felt good, even outside this project. We always have a direct line to the project team, which is reassuring, because we know they can react quickly if we want to change or add anything to My D-Hub. Looking back, I’m glad we chose the implementation partner that felt right and the one we were most comfortable working with.”

Want to optimize your digital workplace? Get in touch with Benoit Loffet, Data Science expert, for more information. 

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