Emergency Call Protocol
Emergency Call Protocol for Mortgage Brokers
Mortgage “emergencies” aren’t floods or fires—your emergency is a missed deadline that kills a deal. A rate lock expiring, a same-day pre-approval request from a Realtor, or a lender’s last-minute conditions can cost you a $3,000–$10,000 purchase commission (or more) if you don’t respond fast. This protocol gives you a clear definition of what counts as an emergency, a triage decision tree, exact scripts, and a repeatable after-hours plan so you stop losing closings to the broker who answers first.
1) What Counts as an Emergency (Mortgage-Broker Definition)
Use one rule: it’s an emergency when a delay of 30–120 minutes can change the borrower’s ability to buy, the loan’s pricing, or the closing date.
Emergency calls usually sound like: “My lock expires today,” “We need a pre-approval letter with this address in the next hour,” “Underwriting just suspended the file,” “The closing disclosure (CD) changed,” or “The lender needs conditions before 3 PM.”
Non-emergencies are important, but not drop-everything urgent: general rate quotes, “how much can I qualify for” without an offer deadline, status checks without a hard cutoff, or document questions where the due date is days away.
Set this expectation everywhere (voicemail, email signature, text auto-reply): you handle true deadline-driven items first, and everything else gets a scheduled callback window.
