When it comes to closing workflow gaps, does one size really fit all?

For the past several years, title agents have been giving their technology partners some version of the same request: help us close the gaps. Those “gaps” are the smaller, tedious tasks wedged between the systems already handled by a production platform or search technology. 

They include the orders that arrive by text instead of through the portal, or the county form that no national platform supports. Or maybe the ledger report someone still assembles by hand at the end of the month. The industry’s tech providers have heard the request, and quite a few have responded.

The evolution of title technology solutions

In fact, that response has reshaped the market. A handful of years ago, most title technology was built to do one thing or a limited number of things well. A company might sell a search product, a document management tool or an eRecording solution, and market itself accordingly. 

Now, a growing number of those same providers, alongside newer entrants, are positioning themselves as capable of addressing workflow gaps broadly, sometimes without specifying which ones.

That’s not necessarily a problem. A provider who understands an agency’s operation well enough to close several gaps, rather than just one, can be an asset, and some of the strongest partners in this space have earned that broader role through years of specific, successful work. 

But an “any gap” promise is a big one, and it’s important for owners and decision makers to understand the different ways providers actually go about delivering on it before an agency puts much weight on it.

How different providers approach workflow gaps

Some providers close gaps mostly through customization, meaning they adjust their own platform’s code or configuration to accommodate an agency’s particular requirement. That approach can work well when the gap lies close to what the platform already does. It can also leave an agency tied to that provider’s own development queue any time a small change is needed down the road, which can be time-consuming and expensive.

Others rely on integration, building purpose-made connections to an agency’s other systems, most often its production platform, so data moves between them automatically instead of by hand. 

A growing number lean on open API access instead, which lets an agency’s broader tech stack communicate directly with a provider’s system rather than routing everything through one closed platform. Open API tends to give agents more flexibility over time, since it doesn’t tie future technology decisions to a single company’s roadmap.

There’s also a significant difference between specialized and general solutions. A specialized tool, whether RPA or something else, addresses a defined task, such as tax search automation or hyperlinking, and tends to do that one job well. 

A more general solution promises to touch many parts of the operation. While that’s an appealing pitch, it can also sacrifice depth for breadth if the provider hasn’t actually built expertise in each of the areas it now claims to cover.

Evaluating a provider’s promise to close gaps

Before handing any provider that kind of open-ended mandate, an agent may want to ask a few pointed questions. 

• How many of an agency’s specific gaps has this provider actually closed for other clients, and can they describe those results in concrete, specific terms rather than general claims? 
• Is the solution built through custom code the provider alone maintains, or does it rely on integration and API access that keeps working even as an agency’s other technology changes? 
• And when a gap involves a truly unique local requirement, will the provider build something narrow enough to fit it, or does the agency end up adapting its own requirement to fit the technology instead?

There isn’t one right answer to which approach works best for a given agency. One chasing full automation across many in-between tasks may get more value from a broader, integration-minded partner willing to grow alongside its operation. One with just a couple of stubborn gaps may be better served by a narrow, specialized fix that does that single job well. 

Either way, the promise to “fill the gaps” is something decision-makers should ask about in detail. It shouldn’t be accepted on its own as proof that a provider can deliver on it.

The title industry has spent several years learning where its workflow gaps actually are. The next stage of that undertaking is learning how to evaluate the growing number of providers who say they can close them, and asking enough of the right questions to know the difference between a partner built for the job and one simply expanding into it.

Jimmy Lewis is the CEO and Co-Founder of True Focus Automation, and Sridhar Loganathan is the Chief Operating Officer and Co-Founder of True Focus Automation.