Online Lead Generation System for Mortgage Lenders, USA
Customer Business Needs
The Mortgage Web Success Managed Web System is designed to be an all in
one online lead generation system for mortgage lenders. The focus of the
system is automating the entire process of setting up a web site with a
direct response marketing approach.
The automation process includes the following:
- Web site creation using template from mortgage broker content
- Sub domain access to the site at http://siteid.clientPortal.com
- Wildcard secure certificate to allow each site to have a secure application on the sub domain
- Allows site to have n domains pointed to it
- Provides access to fully customize content of the sites through a content management system (CMS)
- The site will have mortgage reports available for free that a visitor can request through a form on the site
- The report requests are saved as leads in the client relationship management system (CRM)
- The CRM automatically follows up with those leads via the default follow up message series that is created with template content with the site
- The sites feature a secure application on the sub domain. Each message in the follow up series directs the lead to go back to the site application and complete that.
- Application data is stored for mortgage broker to access through the control panel
- Notification emails can be sent to mortgage brokers when reports have been requested and when an application is submitted through the site
Solution
The developed version of the system included design changes to the backend
of the system. This included redundant web servers and redundant dedicated
database servers. The front end of the system including the Control Panel
and the Web Portal remained unchanged from the member's point of view.
Some integration was required to make the migration over to the new
back-end. This involved writing some new code for the Control Panel which
existed as an ASP.NET Application.
The point of having the multiple web server capability was that when the
existing server load reached its full capacity and the performance of the
sites began to be negatively affected, an additional web server could be
added to the system by setting it up with the necessary system files to
run the web site and add it as another server to the publishing system.
The final delivered system could be divided in the following
modules:
- Service application to handle all periodic tasks in shadow mode (scheduler, auto responder);
- Kernel is a set of algorithms to perform common tasks (POP3 - SMTP client, wrapper around ENOM API, wrapper around BILL Thru API, UI components, classes for DB access);
- Set of customers template pages;
- Admin panel;
- Users control panel;
- Set of PHP scripts to control customers sites, configure Apache server, interoperate with kernel's code, DB access;
- Knowledge base entity representation classes.
Service application was a C# module that needed to be implemented as a
base Microsoft Windows Service application and work on a server as a cron
job to handle periodic tasks:
- Runs scheduler;
- Check up customers emails and act like auto responder.
Kernel is a set of binary modules and scripts to perform base
functionality; it will consist of the following modules:
- Module for communication to Enom API;
- Module for communication to BillThru API;
- UI components;
- POP3-SMTP client.
Benefits
The current brain trust of Mortgage Success LLC had core domain expertise
in high level systems architecture, and was looking for outsourcing
partners to address specific technical challenges just as designing back
end databases that could scale appropriately.
By outsourcing system development to SolovatDesign the client reached the following:
- Maintained focus on high level systems architecture
- Reduced risk that product launch would be delayed
- Improved the overall quality of development
- Minimized development and maintenance costs.
Tools and Technologies: Microsoft Windows Server 2003 and Linux
Fedora 2, MySQL, .NET Framework 1.1 SP1, C#, ASP.NET, PHP, Microsoft
Visual Studio 2005.