RocketOS

for Rocket Mortgage

Reimagining mortgage communication to transform banker productivity from 10 to 50 loans per day through seamless, AI-powered experiences.

Executive summary

I led the communication design strategy for RocketOS, a platform that reimagines how mortgage bankers interact with clients and how leaders coach their teams. By focusing on AI-powered communication and seamless multi-channel experiences, we created a design vision projected to increase banker throughput by 400%, potentially transforming Rocket Mortgage from a $5B to a $50B company following strategic acquisitions.

The
situation

Despite multiple iterations on existing tools, Rocket Mortgage faced a fundamental problem that incremental improvements couldn’t solve. Bankers were forced to navigate between up to eight different platforms to guide clients through the mortgage process, severely limiting their efficiency and effectiveness.

I witnessed this firsthand while shadowing a refinance banker who lost a client during a call because they couldn’t effectively juggle simultaneous communications. While on an important phone call with one client, the banker received both a text and a chat message within 30 seconds.

As they struggled to document the phone client’s information in one system while trying to respond to the incoming messages in another, the client sensed their divided attention and frustration, then hung up.

This scenario played out hundreds of times daily across the organization:

  • Bankers could manage only 10 loans daily due to communication constraints across fragmented tools
  • Teams reached just 3% of available leads with minimal conversion rates
  • Disjointed ecosystem created inefficient workflows for both bankers and their DMBs
  • With upcoming acquisitions of Redfin and Mr. Cooper, Rocket needed scalable systems capable of handling a massive influx of potential leads

Leads contacted

Leads converted

While the legacy tools developed in the early 2000s functioned well enough that bankers often reverted to them during difficult situations, these systems couldn’t scale to support Rocket’s ambitious growth plans.

The task

Our goal wasn’t simply to improve existing tools but to reimagine the entire communication ecosystem. Rather than making incremental improvements to fragmented systems, we needed to create a unified platform that could dramatically increase efficiency, enable more effective coaching, and position Rocket for 10x growth through transformed communication processes.

My role

As Director of Product Design for communication strategy, I led a team of three designers through two focused sprints:

  • 6-week effort on banker-client communication (Banana Phone)
  • 4-week sprint on DMB coaching communications (Canopy)

The team

My Role

Director of Product Design

The Team

Taylor Cornelius: Lead Product Designer
Jayneil Dalal: Lead Product Designer
Jose Ortega: Associate Product Designer

Our Partners

Brittany Wernet: Content Design
Michael Abboreno: Research
Rumana Rahman: Research

The
approach

We implemented a vignette-based design methodology to efficiently explore key workflow moments rather than attempting complete end-to-end experiences. This approach allowed us to focus on high-impact interactions and validate solutions quickly.

What surprised me most during our research was the sense of relief bankers expressed that we were tackling this challenge. Rocket’s strong build culture meant we created everything in-house, a strategic advantage when done right, but also resource-intensive and risky. Bankers were typically critical of new systems, fearful of losing the functionality they relied on, but they immediately recognized the potential of our vision.

Our research revealed distinct user types we needed to accommodate. Senior bankers with deep domain knowledge primarily wanted efficiency and throughput, while newer bankers needed more guidance and context. This insight shifted our approach toward progressive disclosure that could serve both groups effectively.

Banker tool
(Banana Phone)

Through our work with bankers, we developed a communication system that fundamentally reimagined how they interact with clients:

  • Created seamless transitions between voice and chat communications to maintain client relationships
  • Designed intelligent context-switching that allowed bankers to manage multiple client interactions simultaneously
  • Developed AI-powered prioritization identifying high-value clients based on intent signals, credit scores, and market conditions
  • Built AI-assisted response generation that dramatically accelerates banker throughput while maintaining personalization
  • Facilitated more effective three-way communications between bankers, clients, and real estate agents

The AI implementation was critical to solving the multitasking challenge I’d observed. Rather than forcing bankers to manually document client information during calls, our system could extract data from conversation transcripts automatically. When simultaneous messages arrived, AI-generated personalized responses that bankers could quickly review and approve, maintaining warm leads without disrupting their primary conversation.

DMB coaching
(Canopy)

The DMB experience was equally transformed:

  • Reimagined morning huddles with data-informed coaching opportunities based on previous performance
  • Designed real-time communication monitoring that highlighted coaching moments for team development
  • Created AI-powered insights that transformed reactive management into proactive leadership
  • Built discreet coaching channels that allowed DMBs to provide guidance during live client interactions

Technical approach and feasibility

The most challenging aspect of leading this project was aligning diverse stakeholders while coordinating across time zones and managing competing design visions. I guided my team to focus on storytelling, connecting each design decision to banker impact rather than personal preferences, while establishing a structured approach to decision-making

  • Built on existing foundations: Many Canopy tools were already in development, allowing focus on interface innovations
  • Process reinvention vs. acceleration: Rather than making existing processes faster, we reimagined entirely new workflows
  • Strategic engineering partnerships: Worked closely with engineering to ensure technical feasibility
  • Incremental implementation path: Created a roadmap showing how current systems could evolve through staged rollouts

Throughout the project, we maintained a rigorous research process, putting designs in front of bankers and DMBs at early, mid, and high-fidelity stages to continuously refine our approach based on feedback.

The
results

The reimagined communication design received enthusiastic validation from senior leadership who recognized it addressed long-standing operational challenges. Bankers and DMBs described the redesign as proof that “business and design are finally listening to them,” rebuilding trust between teams and creating alignment around a shared vision.

Senior leadership validation

  • Received enthusiastic feedback that designs addressed problems “they’ve been asking for for years”
  • Banking leadership confirmed through heuristic analysis that designs would solve critical operational challenges
  • Established a vision that aligned with broader acquisition strategy and enterprise goals

Operation efficiency

  • Projected to increase banker throughput from 10 loans per day to potentially 50 loans per day
  • Designed to enable Rocket to reach significantly more than the current 3% of available leads
  • Created a foundation for maintaining high-quality client relationships at dramatically increased scale

Strategic positioning

  • Positioned to support a 10x growth trajectory (from $5B to $50B) following Redfin and Mr. Cooper acquisitions
  • Designed to significantly improve profit margins by reducing the cost of servicing each loan
  • Created a competitive advantage through enhanced communication capabilities that competitors cannot easily replicate

Closing
thoughts

What I’m most proud of is how we didn’t rely on industry norms for communication patterns. Instead, we redefined how people can communicate with AI assistance through multiple channels at massive scale. This project connected directly to Rocket’s larger mission to “swing really big” and evolve our software to become the largest player in the non-banking mortgage space.

By reimagining communication from first principles rather than incrementally improving existing systems, we’ve created a foundation for transformative business growth that positions Rocket for long-term market leadership.