The road to a #1 ranking began with one man’s decision. In retrospect, however, it was a momentous and timely decision.

It started in the busy and prosperous spring of 1989. Bob Fritts, president of John Laing Homes, determined that his firms’ future growth would become increasingly dependent upon customer referrals.

Even while enveloped in the midst of one of this industry’s strongest boom markets, Fritts looked ahead and realized that as the automotive industry had already discovered before him – the issues of product quality and service would become the underpinning of success in the 90’s.

Fritts also realized that to hold his staff accountable for increased quality and service, he needed a way to objectively measure product quality and customer service.

The HomeBuyer Satisfaction Survey, administered by Irvine-based Eliant, provided the opportunity to collect continuous evaluations of quality and service from the best qualified judges: Laing’s home buyers.

“This monthly survey tells us how our buyers rate quality and service on each project and how Laing compares to our competitors,” explained Fritts.

When the initial customer ratings came in, Richard Bryan, Director of New Homes Warranty and Quality Control, found it difficult to be optimistic.

“We were ranked in the bottom quarter of Southern California builders. On the other hand, we had nowhere to go but up. Our team then decided it was more important to become the best builder, not necessarily the biggest,” said Bryan.

“Our initial goals was to deliver a home with zero defects on the walk-though. When we were unable to do this, we realized we must look at the problem differently – that’s when we began to focus our efforts on ‘response time’.”

With Bryan responsible for customer service and Dick Yencer (VP of Operations) responsible for construction, the stage was set. Customer service representatives were asked to develop new procedures to improve the speed and quality of service.

Colleen Horiuchi, Laing’s Manager of New Homes Warranty, began to recognize the importance of service speed to her customers; “The survey results clearly showed how repair timeliness directly affected customer satisfaction and referral rates. In fact, the survey showed that repair speed had more impact on referrals than any other performance issue.”

As the Laing staff concentrated on quality issues and customer service effectiveness, quarterly H*B*S ratings began to improve. “Our customer satisfaction ratings only improved a small amount each quarter,” added Bryan, “but they improved consistently every quarter. By early 1991, we were ranked 10^th, then 9^th, then 5^th. Our staff could see that their efforts were paying dividends.”

And so it happened that in the summer of ’92, three years following the decision to become more aggressive about quality and customer service, John Laing Homes is ranked #1 for customer service (of 26 major homebuilders in Southern California). Moreover, Laing is tied for the #1 overall buyer satisfaction rating in California.

Most importantly, homebuyers were more willing to recommend John Laing to a friend. In 1989, only 65% were willing to do so; in 1992, 97% say they would recommend Laing. In fact, nearly 20% of Laing’s 1991-1992 sales have come from referrals, compared to the Southern California average of 17%.

Bryan stresses that it has been a team effort. “Dick Yencer continues to improve the construction of our homes, and that makes it easier for customer service to be more proactive. We’re not just ‘firefighters’ anymore.

Bryan says his staff has adopted an approach suggest by Bob Mirman of Eliant. Our people now plan to exceed each homebuyer’s expectations. We want to be the Nordstrom of the home-building industry. When home shoppers hear the name ‘John Laing Homes’, we want them to think ‘Quality and Customer Service.’”

The decision made by Bob Fritts in 1989 was the first step in a 3-year effort to turn John Laing Homes into a legendary, customer-oriented builder.