A year after launching in response to the lockdown, Accord Mortgages has reported its busiest ever week on its webchat service.

The lender’s sales team, including business development managers and advisers, moved to remote working overnight in line with government guidelines last March, switching from telephone to webchat as the main source of handling inbound enquiries.

The intermediary-only lender has now recorded its busiest week since launch, holding more than 4,000 online conversations with brokers during the week it became the first lender to return to the 95% mortgage market – double that of its first week in operation.

Brokers can use the function for any queries on lending policy, criteria or product information to  get a quick response, with a transcript of the conversation available to further help advisers access the information they need immediately as well as providing an audit trail.

Jeremy Duncombe, managing director of Accord Mortgages, said: “Exactly 12 months ago we asked everyone to work from home. Our BDA team has done an amazing job delivering high quality online chats to thousands of brokers and we couldn’t be prouder of the way they’ve continued to use their product expertise and criteria knowledge to help advisers serve their clients and keep the market moving.”

“To have our busiest webchat week since the start of the first lockdown is a timely reminder of how far we’ve come and how much the world has changed, but the consistently high satisfaction scores we continue to see demonstrates the value the function adds to intermediaries. Our Accord NPS shows that 87% of brokers responding to our survey scored us as nine or above out of 10 in 2020.”