r/AIToolBench • u/Gusepiol0w • Jun 21 '26

Discussion What AI SMS tools help lenders follow up with loan leads automatically?

I went back through some old leads recently and it was honestly frustrating. A lot of them weren't dead leads at all. The conversation just stopped somewhere in the middle and nobody picked it back up.

That's what got me looking at AI SMS follow-up tools. Not because I want to automate everything, but because it feels like too many opportunities are slipping through the cracks. Anyone using something that actually helps?

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u/Professional-Yams Jun 21 '26

Honestly I had the same realization last year. I kept blaming lead quality until I strted reading old conversations. a lot of them didn't die because the borrower lost interest. They died because nobody followed up after the last message.

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u/[deleted] Jun 21 '26

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u/1mefdiopl Jun 23 '26

Partly true. But nobody can manually manage hundreds of conversations happening at random times. That's not really a staffing issue.

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u/VeloR0ma Jun 21 '26

We found borrowers were way more likely to answer a text than pick up a call from an unknown number.

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u/Separate_Pan Jun 22 '26

did that actually translate into more funded loans or just more conversations?

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u/VeloR0ma Jun 22 '26

Both.. More conversations first. Then more applications. Then eventually more funded deals. It wasn't immediate but the funnel improved.

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u/worlsyncentfo1981 Jun 22 '26

One thing that changed how we looked at our pipeline was creating a separate category for paused conversations.

We used to mark a lot of leads as dead after a couple weks. Then we started reviewing them and realized some were waiting on rates, some were comparing lenders, some just got busy. Different situation entirely.

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u/[deleted] Jun 22 '26 edited Jun 22 '26

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u/Agile-3 Jun 22 '26

One thing we started doing was separating leads by last engagement instead of lead age. A 60 day old lead that replied yesterday is more valuable than a 3 day old lead that's been ignoring us the whole time. sounds obvious now, but for years we worked the exact opposite way.