A calling workflow for loan and credit card sales teams: from enquiry to disbursal

Loan and credit card sales is two jobs. The first is calling: an applicant fills in a form, often with more than one lender on the same evening, and the first useful conversation usually decides who gets the file. The second is paperwork: income proofs, statements and identity documents that arrive one at a time, if someone keeps asking. Teams lose more files in the second job than the first.

This article sets out a workflow for in-house lending teams, credit card sales teams and DSAs working for one or several lenders. Lending is regulated: your regulator’s rules and each lender’s code of conduct come first, and the advice on phone behaviour here is a floor, not a substitute for them.

Lead sources: one queue, with the source recorded

Record the source on every lead from the start: it is what tells you which channel produces disbursals rather than just enquiries.

• Google Ads lead forms and your own website’s enquiry form, connected under Setup → Lead sources so a new enquiry lands with an agent within seconds.
• Partner and aggregator leads pushed in through the public API, so nobody re-types them from an email.
• Lists your lender or your own records provide, such as cross-sell or renewal lists, imported from CSV or Excel with duplicates checked against existing leads by phone number.
• Missed calls from new numbers on agents’ Android work SIMs, turned into leads with a callback due, if an owner or admin switches it on in Settings → Calling policy.

Each lead source carries its own owner, starting stage and tags. A practical pattern is one source per product or campaign, so home loan enquiries go to the home loan desk and card enquiries to the card team. Then add an automation rule — “if a new lead is not called within 10 minutes, notify managers and give it to someone else” — because a lending enquiry that waits an hour has usually spoken to someone else by then.

Before you call any list, be sure the people on it agreed to hear from you or your lender. An enquiry form someone filled in is not the same as a bought list. If you are unsure whether a list may be called, ask the lender first.

The eligibility call: a few questions, captured as fields

The first call has one aim: find out, politely and quickly, whether this person is likely to qualify, and if not, whether another product fits. Five questions cover most of it.

1. Which product, and how much? Loan type and amount, or the card they are interested in.
2. How do they earn? Salaried, self-employed or running a business.
3. Roughly what is their monthly income?
4. Do they have existing loans or card dues, and about how much goes to EMIs each month?
5. Where do they live or work? Many products are only offered in certain cities or pin codes.

Record the answers as custom fields, not in a note. The Finance & lending template in LumaKol starts you with four: Loan type (Home, Personal, Business, Vehicle, Education, Gold, Credit card), Loan amount, Monthly income and Employment (Salaried, Self-employed, Business owner). Add fields for city, existing EMIs or card variant if your products depend on them. As fields, the answers are recorded the same way by every agent, stay on the lead for whoever picks it up next, and travel to your other systems through the API.

A call script for each stage, open on the agent’s screen while they call, keeps the questions consistent. The template’s opening line asks permission before asking anything: it introduces the agent and the company, mentions the loan the person enquired about, and asks whether they can check a few details.

A pipeline that matches how files move

Lending pipelines have more stages than most, because a file passes through hands outside your team. The template, under Setup → Pipeline → Start from a template, uses these stages, and applying it adds what is missing without deleting anything you already have.

Each stage carries a chance-to-win percentage that the pipeline forecast in Reports uses, so set them from your own history once you have a few months of data. Credit card teams can keep the same shape and rename the last stages to fit: approved instead of sanctioned, card issued instead of disbursed.

The template’s call outcomes do much of the routine work. Interested moves the lead to Eligibility checked with a follow-up the next day; Call back later sets one in three hours; Send document list on WhatsApp sets one for the next day; No answer retries in four hours, Busy in one and Switched off the next day; Wrong number and Not interested close the lead as lost. If your workspace already had outcomes with the same names, applying the template keeps yours, so check the follow-up times under Setup → Call outcomes.

Document collection is where files stall

A file that is ninety per cent complete earns nothing. Make every missing document somebody’s dated task.

• Send the checklist the moment eligibility is confirmed, as a WhatsApp message template with the applicant’s name and the product filled in. List exactly what is needed for their profile; a salaried applicant and a business owner need different papers.
• Track what has arrived on the lead. A multi-select custom field such as “Documents received” shows anyone who opens the file what is in and what is still missing.
• Give each gap a follow-up with a date and a reason: “Call for last three months’ bank statement, promised Thursday.”
• Use a sequence for the reminders. A sequence can prompt the agent to send a WhatsApp reminder with the text ready, set the next call as a task a couple of days later, and leave on its own once a call is answered or the lead is won or lost, if you keep those options on.
• Keep the documents themselves in the system your lender or company requires, and collect them only through channels it allows. Use the CRM to know what is in, what is missing and who is chasing it.

Consent and fair conduct on the phone

Lending calls touch money and personal data, so how agents behave matters as much as how fast they call. Your regulator and lenders set the actual rules; a few habits apply almost everywhere.

• Say who you are, which company you call from and, for DSAs, which lender you are calling on behalf of.
• Do not promise approval, a rate or a limit before the lender has decided. Quote fees and charges as the lender states them, and send them in writing.
• Call at reasonable hours, and stop when asked. “Please do not call me again” ends the calling, on that call.
• Give people time. Pressure to decide on the call is how complaints start.
• Ask for only the information the product needs, and never ask for one-time passwords, PINs or full card details on a call.
• If calls are recorded, tell people, and follow the law and the lender’s rules on recording.

In Settings → Calling policy you set calling hours and days; the phone apps warn an agent who dials outside them and ask them to confirm, and the call is flagged as outside hours in reports. A maximum number of attempts per lead, with a wait between unanswered attempts, stops the same person being rung again and again. An outcome that moves a lead to Lost takes it out of every calling queue, so record a refusal with one, and write the request on the lead so every agent sees it. LumaKol does not check the national DND registry, so keep your own registry checks in place.

Applicant data deserves the same care. Under Settings → Privacy you can mask phone numbers for agents or hide them entirely, so they tap to call without seeing the number, choose which roles may export leads, with every export logged, and block screenshots on lead screens in the Android app.

For DSAs working with several lenders

A DSA needs to know where each file sits. Add a dropdown custom field for the lender the file was submitted to, so every lead in Under review shows whose desk it is waiting on. If you run a loan origination system, the public API and outgoing webhooks — for new leads, updates, stage changes, assignments, logged calls and due follow-ups — keep it in step without double entry. For doorstep document pickup, agents can check in on the lead when they arrive; the phone’s location is read once at check-in and check-out, never tracked in the background.

What the manager looks at

The stage funnel shows where files drop. In most lending teams the gap between Eligibility checked and Documents collected is the one to watch, because that is where follow-up discipline shows. Alongside it: overdue follow-ups, calls and outcomes per agent, and who is calling right now on the live board. Because calls made from agents’ Android phones are captured automatically, these numbers come from the calls themselves rather than from what people remember to log.