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» VISIT US ONLINE @ DSNEWS.COM 23 Mary Coffin is head of Customer excellence for Wells Fargo Home Lending. A 17- year veteran of the company, Coffin has held several leadership positions, and her passion for delivering high-quality service has always been front and center. In her current role, Coffin and her team collaborate with leaders across Wells Fargo Home Lending and the Wells Fargo enterprise to influence strategic business actions that provide continuous improvement to facilitate the delivery of truly differentiated customer service. What is the one thing you wish someone had told you when you first started in the industry? I always knew the importance of being open to change. I actually thrive on change because it is necessary to stay competitive. Early in my career, I wish I had gained a better understanding of the difficulty of executing change. Given the complexity of the mortgage business model—customers, secondary market investors and regulators— you can't approach change with only one lens. Decisions must be balanced. I quickly learned how important it was to fully understand each stakeholder's role and requirements, as well as how they all work together to grow and sustain responsible homeownership. I saw first-hand how important a broad perspective was when I led Wells Fargo Servicing Operations during the financial crisis. ose years prepared me to lead, educate and drive immediate change during the crisis. Furthermore, managing through the crisis helped me identify the additional critical practices to sustain long-term growth for the housing industry—which were ensuring that others understood the various stakeholders and how they operate together and the benefits of opening up the mortgage industry to new practices and standards of business execution. e need to push ourselves to always be better never changes. But "how" we deliver that change is important to ensure that current and long-term growth is inevitable. It seems like Mortgage servicers are getting used to the new regulatory climate in the industry. Or at least they have a little better idea of what to expect. How has Wells Fargo adjusted? I think the key word for Wells Fargo is "balance." We are focused and working very hard to meet the new regulatory requirements with balanced thought leadership. We view new regulatory requirements as foundational, and then we build on that foundation with whatever we need to deliver high-quality, simplistic, transparent service. When you work with that philosophy, you don't see regulation as the end but rather the beginning. When working with our customers, we never want to use regulation as an excuse for not doing something for them. Our leadership role is to set customer expectations up front and then communicate prolifically with customers so they understand the process and the protections that are there for them. Besides regulatory changes, what's the biggest challenge for servicers today? Easy answer….effectively communicating with our customers! e lending business is very complex —again it involves multiple stakeholders. You've got investors; regulators; local, state, and federal government entities; producers and servicers —each of them with specific guidelines and requirements that directly impact or provide influence over how service is executed. Conversely, consumers want simplistic, transparent, easy-to-understand answers about their finances. Not only is it difficult to understand the intricate details of our processes, in most cases the secondary market requirements don't really matter to the end consumers. ey want us to speak in a language that makes sense, be factual, take accountability and ensure they understand what to expect and what they should know. ey want to trust us as their financial advisor and servicer. e challenge is striking the right balance. Customer communication is truly an art more than a science. In the past Wells Fargo has been quite active in local communities. Why does community involvement matter to your organization? We know that our company will only be successful when the communities in which we live and work are successful; when customers and constituents can afford and sustain homeownership, and when the communities in which they live can thrive and grow. ey don't just need homes. ey need homes in neighborhoods. ey don't just need neighborhoods. ey need safe neighborhoods where responsible homeowners come together as a community. We work directly with community leaders, local government officials and non-profits to help educate first time homebuyers, counsel homeowners on home preservation techniques, and provide down-payment assistance to thousands of potential homeowners. It is only by working together that we can ensure the advancement and sustainability of homeownership in our local communities. While the housing market is improving, and we are very proud of our accomplishments —providing over $250 million into communities in the last few years—Wells Fargo understands there is more work to be done. ere are still many opportunities for us to provide direct support to neighborhoods and homeowners and to ensure that credit opportunities are available for all qualified borrowers. Where do you see the housing market in the next year? Should we be concerned about the recent GDP slowdown in the first quarter? e sluggish start to 2015 economic growth has not changed Wells Fargo's Economics Group's view that home sales and new home construction are set for stronger gains in 2015. According to their April report, "While data through the first six months were mixed, home sales and new home construction through the first three months of this year are running slightly ahead of their year-ago pace. Moreover, the more leading data on builder sentiment, pending home sales and mortgage applications from those purchasing homes have all strengthened in recent weeks, suggesting that the housing market has solid momentum going into the spring selling season." So while Wells Fargo analysts say that the overall outlook for GDP growth has been trimmed back a bit, we are just as optimistic about the housing sector today as we were at the start of the year. Home sales and new home construction could very well be a major upside surprise in 2015.

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