Lender’s new head to brokers: ‘Give us an opportunity to impress you’

Canadiana’s reputation may have taken a hit among brokers last year, but don’t count them out just yet says its newly appointed CEO

Canadiana’s reputation may have taken a hit among brokers last year, but don’t count them out just yet says its newly appointed CEO.

“Last year was a very productive year but, frankly, we were challenged by not delivering a consistent client experience,” Frank Tucci, CEO of Canadiana Financial, told MortgageBrokerNews.ca. “We have made a number of staffing changes, trained our staff, changed our service model and we are confident that the changes are making a difference.”

This year, a major focus for Canadiana will be investing in technology and embracing better, more efficient ways to keep in contact with customers, including through the increased use of social media, according to Tucci, who brings with him over 30 years of financial industry experience. His most recent position was as executive vice president of operations at Paradigm Quest.

Tucci hopes to bring some of the processes he helped implement at Paradigm to Canadiana.

“We need to do a better job of understanding the entire end-to-end process and customer experience of an ingested deal,” he said. “Once we understand this, we can do a better job of eliminating or changing some of the inefficient or unnecessary steps.”

Although he has headed the lender for less than a month, Tucci says he has already spent time speaking with employees and brokers to get a better sense of how to better its customer service.

And he’s got a message for brokers.

“If you haven’t used us lately, take a look; send us a deal. Give us an opportunity to impress you. I think you’d be surprised at how we have changed over the past 12 to 18 months,” Tucci said. “We have lots more to do, but the team here has done a good job of putting in place a good core group of people ready to serve the broker.  

“This is the one thing I noticed immediately when I arrived,” he continued. “We are much leaner than we were a year ago, with a much more experienced sales and operations team, and we will steadily build and grow from this core team.”