With the average 30-year mortgage rate in the United States continuing to hover near recent highs of 6.8%,1 homeowners might be expected to feel some tension with their mortgage company. However, high rates alone do not explain why customer satisfaction scores for mortgage servicers are significantly lower—and declining—than they are for mortgage originators. According to the J.D. Power 2025 U.S. Mortgage Servicer Satisfaction Study, customer satisfaction with mortgage servicers has plummeted in 2025, with an average satisfaction score that is now 131 points (on a 1,000-point scale) lower than the average score for mortgage originators. Increasingly, the difference between the two comes down to effective communication and customer service. Rocket Mortgage ranks highest among mortgage servicers with a score of 685. Guild Mortgage (677) ranks second and Regions Mortgage (656) ranks third. Key findings of the 2025 study:
- A fragmented customer journey: Overall customer satisfaction with mortgage servicers is 596, which is down 10 points from the 2024 study. Customer satisfaction with mortgage servicers declines across all dimensions year over year. This decline stands in stark contrast to customer satisfaction with mortgage originators, which reached a score of 727 in the J.D. Power 2024 U.S. Mortgage Origination Satisfaction Study.SM
- Service quality and responsiveness play major role in customer loyalty: While better interest rates and lower costs and fees are cited most frequently by customers as a reason to switch mortgage providers, service quality and responsiveness can be equally powerful drivers of customer loyalty and retention. Customers cite better/improved customer service (51%); easy access to loan information (36%); and flexible ways to make a mortgage payment (27%) among the top reasons to switch mortgage companies.
- Communication breakdown: Despite industry efforts to deliver more effective communications, just 31% of mortgage servicer customers gave an excellent or perfect rating to their servicer for messaging that got their attention. Attention-getting is rated higher when there is a level of personalization added to the communication. Among those who have received personalized communications, account alerts are the most frequently recalled form of communication at 46%. Just 32% of customers give their mortgage servicer a high overall communication rating, down 5 percentage points from 2022.
- Satisfaction decreases as escrow costs rise: Escrow costs—the fees typically rolled into a mortgage to pay annual property tax and homeowners insurance bills—are rising nationwide, with 57% of mortgage servicer customers experiencing an increase in escrow costs this year. Overall satisfaction is 67 points lower, on average, among those who experienced an escrow cost increase than among those who experienced no change.