Clients rarely announce that they are leaving. They see a rate, take a call from their bank, and the trail simply stops. The warning signs exist months in advance — if anyone is watching.
Ask most brokers how many clients they lost last year and the honest answer is that they are not sure. Attrition shows up as a trail line disappearing, usually a month or two after the client has already moved.
The signals that precede a departure
- The client's rate has drifted materially above what the same lender offers new borrowers
- A fixed term or introductory period is inside ninety days of expiry
- Equity has grown enough to change the LVR band and unlock better pricing
- No meaningful contact for twelve months or more
- A life event on file — new job, new child, investment purchase — with no follow-up
Every one of these is knowable from data the broker already holds. What is missing is not information, it is monitoring. Nothing in a typical workflow watches a settled loan and raises a hand.
The retention conversation is short
A repricing request to the existing lender takes minutes and frequently succeeds. The client keeps their loan, the broker keeps the trail, and the relationship is reinforced rather than tested. The value is entirely in timing: the same conversation two weeks after a discharge request is worthless.
"Retention is not a campaign. It is being the first person to raise the thing the client was about to Google."
Building an early-warning layer
The practical fix is a system that reads the settled book continuously, compares each client's rate against current pricing, tracks expiry dates and contact recency, and produces a short ranked list of who to call this week with the reason attached. That turns retention from an annual review project into ten minutes a day.
This is the problem Kayotte was built to solve — monitoring the book so the signals reach you before the client acts on them.
General information only, not financial advice.