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About a year ago, I wrote an article for Builder Digest: "Forget
About Satisfying Your Customers," in which I referred
to a list of ten steps suggested by Eliant for improving
homeowner referrals. Since that article appeared, we have
received dozens of requests for our list and have been happy to
send our suggestions to all who have requested them.
Until now, this entire list has never been published in its
entirety, although three of ten were included in last year’s
article.
The purpose of this list is very straight forward: The pursuit
of home buyer satisfaction has only one legitimate overall goal…increased
referrals. Pro-active referrals come from VERY
Satisfied buyers. Your strongest sales force is, therefore, an
army of ‘Very Satisfied’ homeowners who will pro-actively
rave about your quality, your integrity, your service.
Top 10 Tips
10. Measure Buyer Satisfaction.
Since homebuyer satisfaction is the foundation, the catalyst for
referrals, how can you hope to improve that which is not being
measured? Answer: you can’t. Without measurement, there is no
accountability for improvement. Survey every buyer and report
results for each community, as well as each sales person,
service representative, design consultant, customer service rep,
etc. Eliant’s suggestion: Survey new buyers 30-45 days after
move-in to evaluate their perception of the sales, closing, and
initial service process. Then, at six months, once they have had
adequate time to learn about their home and how it works, survey
again and ask them to rate your quality and service. (Call
Eliant for samples of these types of surveys).
9. Presidential Contact. As president of your firm, you
don’t need an intern to ‘reach out and touch someone.’ Each new
buyer should receive a call from the company president or other
high executive 2-4 weeks after move-in. Ask about the purchase
and move-in experience; how it could have been improved; how you
can help now. Author Steven R. Covey (“Seven Habits of Highly
Effective People”) once wrote: “Seek first to understand and
then to be understood. Most people do not listen with the intent
to understand: they listen with the intent to reply.” So
remember: The purpose of this call is to learn and impart the
impression of a caring, empathetic home builder (and that is
not an oxymoron). Do not become defensive, argumentative.
Listen…and learn.
8. Company Newsletter Publicizes Buyer Satisfaction:
Your company newsletter, mailed and e-mailed to every home buyer
on your list, should continually remind every buyer of your
successful pursuit of ‘delighted’ customers. Share your scores,
tell every one of your improvements and response to customers’
suggestions. Tell stories about your sales or service personnel
who went ‘above and beyond’ to assist their customers. Put it on
your WEB site, too. Sometimes you need to blow your own horn
before your customers will go out and blow it for you.
7. Start Every Meeting With A Success Story.
Training your staff to look for opportunities to exceed customer
expectations is not enough to generate consistent excellence.
This behavior must be stimulated, reinforced. To help maintain a
corporate customer –driven culture, ask your managers to report
examples of employees who did something special for one of their
customers. Then, every sales meeting, every customer service
meeting should start with a re-telling of this story. The
Nordstrom legend started and is being maintained by the constant
re-telling of such stories. Your legend is about to be born.
6. Provide Incentives For Generating High Buyer Satisfaction.
Of the 52 major homebuilders who utilize Eliant’s Home Buyer
Surveys each month, the best performing builders incorporate
buyer satisfaction scores into their performance evaluation and
bonus compensation plan. It’s relatively cheap insurance and
practically guarantees stronger referrals. But, be careful: Your
compensation plan needs to target only those issues having the
greatest impact on future referrals. Eliant research has
identified the top five issues having the greatest impact on
referrals: Your sales, service, construction and purchasing
personnel should be compensated on the basis of buyer
satisfaction scores for “Overall Quality of Construction,”
“Service Response Speed” and, most importantly, “Willingness to
Recommend Your Builder.” When it comes to the customer-sensitive
performance of key builder personnel, the old adage holds true:
“You don’t get what you expect, only what you inspect. Buyer
survey data provides the glue for your accountability system.
5. Knock Next Door.
Pro-active customer service is better than reactive service.
Once or twice a week, every customer service rep should knock on
the door of a new homeowner: “Hi, I’m Dave with Customer
Service. I’m in the neighborhood today and wondered if you have
anything which needs touch-up or repair?” The rep should make
any repair taking less than 10 minutes. If it is a larger
repair, use the homeowner’s phone to call in and set up an
appointment.
If the new homeowner is not in, leave a specially-designed
door-hanger on the door knob which lets the homeowner know you
stopped by unannounced. You’ll be the talk of the community.
Homeowners will shower you with heaps of praise. Heartfelt
thanks. Referrals. Warm letters to your Mom.
4. Quarterly ‘Action Plan’ Meetings.
The only thing worse than not surveying your customers is to
survey and then ignore the results. Surveying home buyers sets
up expectations that things will improve, that personnel will
change, upgrade their performance, increase their visible
customer sensitivity. These changes require planning and
accountability.
Each department (sales, construction, escrow, design, service,
purchasing) should hold a quarterly meeting to review survey
results and determine actions necessary to improve home buyer
satisfaction. The meeting should always start with a review of
the previous quarter’s objectives and survey results.
3. Hold An In-Model Focus Group.
Between 6-12 months after move-in, invite a small group of Plan
3 homeowners to a catered ‘focus group’ dinner in your Plan 3
model. Here’s why: Thinking about building a similar product
again or soon building the next phase? Who knows more about how
your homes work than your current homeowners? Bring some of them
together and ask them to re-design their home. They will be
impressed with your interest and will help you improve your
design and features. Result: Improved designs, and more
referrals.
2. Get Your Name In Re-Sale Ads.
As a builder, the highest form of praise is to have your buyers
use your company name in their ads when selling their home. The
immediate inference is that the seller is proud of his home,
proud to be one of your customers. It exclaims volumes about
your quality, your reputation, and it comes from the most
credible source: the homeowner. What could be better? Offer to
share the cost of your buyers’ re-sale ads if they use your
company name in their ad (i.e. “Centex home”). If you pay $20
per ad submitted, up to $100 maximum, you’ll get five ads which
help build your reputation. Best advertising you ever bought.
1. Response Speed Is the Ultimate Key.
All of Eliant’s research with over 100,000 home buyers confirms
that the key to referrals is the speed of service response. This
does not mean the time it takes to complete the repair, but the
timeliness of the process you take the buyer through: How
quickly is the buyer’s request acknowledged; how quickly is the
appointment scheduled? Does the repair person show up on time or
call to inform of a delay? A 10% improvement in home buyers’
satisfaction with ‘service speed’ yields a 3.3% increase in your
“Willingness to Recommend’ score.
The future of your firm depends on your ability to include your
home owners as part of your sales force. Strong homeowner
referrals is one of the key elements distinguishing the great
builders from the ‘good’ builders. How do you want to be
perceived?
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