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After report reveals Denver builders’ failure to capitalize on leads, pros stress basics such as phone calls and handwritten thank-yous.
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Timely, relevant responses to requests for information are rare.
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Strategy eliminates desire to wait for further price drops.
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Four builders discuss the tangible returns of an effective customer care program.
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It's a fact: New-home buyers become, by turns, more enchanted and less thrilled with every moment that passes as the months-long, drawn out ordeal of building-to-buy plays out. What's more, in today's environment of buyer uncertainty, trickling sales, and soaring cancellations, home builders need...
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Southwest Airlines' CEO Herb Kelleher has been saying it for years: "Happy employees make happy customers make happy shareholders." Thanks to an enlightened management, Southwest has made that phrase more than a mantra. Now, more and more home builders are taking up the same refrain, certain that...
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Rich Van Tassel, president of Royal Oaks Building Group, a medium-sized home building company in North Carolina's Research Triangle, was on the cusp; with 131 homes built in 2006, he knew his company, which targets first-time home buyers, would draw the attention of customer satisfaction ratings...
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The NAHB Research Center recently announced the winners of the 2008 National Housing Quality (NHQ) Awards, presented annually to home builders and trade companies that demonstrate best-in-class customer satisfaction and business management standards in residential construction. The NHQ Awards...
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Like virtually everywhere else in the big builder community, for one of the nation's best-run private home building companies, the back half of the 21st Century's first decade looked a lot different in 2005 than it does in 2007, 2008, and very possibly 2009. John Laing Homes CEO Larry Webb had led...
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New-home buyer satisfaction held its own in 2006, despite the housing slump that began in earnest that year, according to the 11th annual new-home builder customer satisfaction survey, released this morning from J.D. Power and Associates. Nationally, the overall customer satisfaction index score...
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By implementing and continually refining a comprehensive commitment to quality management, Atlantic Builders has since reduced warranty costs to one-quarter of 1 percent of its annual revenue, a savings of about $2,200 per house. The company also has shaved more than a month off its per-house cycle...
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IT'S BEEN SAID THAT TOTAL quality builders are highly productive and build homes more efficiently than other builders, so it makes sense that they would also enjoy higher profits, greater customer satisfaction, and fewer defects. Results of a recent NAHB Research Center survey of National Housing...
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Has there ever been a less accurate statement than “one size fits all”? To my way of thinking, you certainly don't have to be the proverbial rocket scientist to figure out that no matter what the circumstances, a single prescriptive and universal rule is going to be a lot less effective than one...
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IF YOU WANT TO WIN THE game of repeat and referral business, there is no question that it is won and lost on warranty service. Customer satisfaction hinges heavily on response time to warranty service calls and whether the repair corrected the problem. But builders that truly are committed to...
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For builders, the current market conditions are no game and the stakes are nothing less than survival. You can't afford to drop the ball because there just aren't that many opportunities right now to put points on the board. That's why it's critical to master the fundamentals of the business:...
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Builders play the cards they’ve been dealt to stay afloat.
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A builder’s bankruptcy can be devastating to home buyers.
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It ranks up there among the true highlight-reel moments in life. A first kiss. Passing the diver's license test. Graduation day. The first day on a new job. A wedding day. The birth of a first child. News of that first child's plans to marry. The first day in a new home. While you might view the...
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What gets a person really anxious? How about spending more money on a single purchase than he or she will likely earn over the next seven or eight years? How about having to provide detailed documentation, showing the address of every home one's lived in since college and every job one's held...
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Imagine it: a home buying process in which your entire organization teams up to communicate in a way that builds a deep, abiding trust, and provides solutions at each phase that meet your customer needs on the money. Now that's enlightened customer care. If two competing companies each deliver an...