Virtual Care

NOT EVERY TECHNOLOGICAL ADVANCE turns out to be as good for consumers as the marketing hype suggests. How many people really think pumping their own gasoline is better (or cheaper) than full serve? Has the availability of 100 television channels really broadened our intellectual horizons as some initially suggested?

Fortunately, sometimes technology fills a gap that's not being filled by the human equivalent. That's the gap that Carl Mittelstadt, a veteran business consultant and creator of “My New Surroundings,” identified and filled. Mittelstadt worked with Lee Wetherington Homes of Sarasota, Fla., to create a semi-automatic way to increase customer satisfaction.

Michelle Burke-Phillips, executive vice president of marketing for Lee Wetherington Homes, says the company's unique Web site presence has been good for business.

WEB MASTER: You may think that you have explored the limits of Web-based customer care with your firm—until you see what Carl Mittelstadt was able to do for Lee Wetherington Homes in Florida. His “My New Surroundings” interactive Web site has paid off many times over for the builder, by reducing the number of phone calls fielded and keeping customers happy throughout the construction process. What's the secret? Give clients a real-time tool with which to monitor their new home online.

“With our incredibly rapid growth, communication with customers is hugely important,” she says. “My New Surroundings gives homeowners power over that communication.”

“I got the idea while I was having a home built in Sarasota, Fla., while living in Atlanta,” Mittelstadt recalls. “As I was signing the contract, I saw them staking out the boundaries. I asked them to take photos of the building process and send them to me. I wanted to see what was happening while I was in Atlanta.”

Later, Mittelstadt began to connect his own satisfaction at seeing the “in progress” photos to what he might do for Lee Wetherington. He pitched the idea of a Web site that would raise the builder's J.D. Power scores by focusing on the things customers actually care about.

“I noticed that when I looked at Lee's Web site, it was all about quality and workmanship. But when you look at J.D. Power and Associates surveys, they find that these attributes rank very low in terms of what makes customers happy.

“What inevitably happens,” he continues, “is that people go a little crazy when they build a house. There's often one thing that spoils the relationship with the builder, because they can't get a response.”

Mittelstadt suggested to Wetherington that it could extend its relationship with clients past the closing, at the same time reducing warranty costs, by using a custom Web design called My New Surroundings. The builder gave him the green light.

On its surface, the New Surroundings approach looks like a lot of builder Web sites that offer community information. But what sets it apart are two things: its interactive qualities and its depth.

The way it works, a customer logs in with his or her access code and is directed toward a particular community. If the home isn't complete, he or she can immediately see a series of photos showing the various construction phases of the home. A builder staff person takes 29 key photos of each project at different phases, based on a standard guide.

The photos include upbeat captions. “Each picture has a value statement so you feel good about what you're seeing,” Mittelstadt explains. “These might include something such as, ‘The use of super-insulated low-E windows lowers your energy bills significantly.' That adds value in the buyer's mind.”

Burke-Phillips notes that the availability of photos allows clients to catch mistakes early. “If anything shows up that's not supposed to be there,” she says, “the builder is just a phone call away.”

Mittelstadt says the site also includes photos of all of the design selections available—and we show them in place on a similar home, plus a picture of the design associate,” he adds. “The problem is that a lot of people go to a design center, and they talk to a salesperson, but they still can't visualize what the staffer is describing. So they say ‘How much is it?', and that's that—everything is brought back to a common denominator.”

By showing pictures on the Web site of what the home would look like with the best upgrades, he says, many buyers opt for pricier packages. That might mean the difference between an $800,000 standard package and the same house with bells and whistles for $1.2 million.

“The idea is to have them fall in love with a certain look [online] right away,” Mittelstadt says. “Then when it comes time to choose, they say ‘What the hell. We want that option.'”

But those photos are just the launching place for the home buyer's ongoing use of New Surroundings. As one drills into the site, each section is customized to the needs of a specific buyer in that particular community.

For example, under “Shopping & Services,” the homeowner is given a list of links to local retailers. These businesses are posted online for free. In exchange, the builder asks the company to do something special specifically for Wetherington Homes' customers. That might be a discount or a free coupon. As a result, says Mittelstadt, the builder stays in the owners' mind and is associated with a good deal.

“Also, for that reason, they'll keep coming back to the Web site.”

For warranty matters, there's an easy interface that gives updated contact information for the specific trades who did the work on their community.

In other words, it deflects those calls away from the builder or superintendent, who has long since moved on, and to the person who is now in charge of repairs or warranty claims.

The site also provides a win-win with regard to other documents that the homeowner needs to fill out, such as product warranties, at the time of closing. Buyers can fill out all of their warranties using one form that is available online, although they still have to keep a paper copy. This aspect of the site hasn't yet gone fully “paperless.”

In addition, a section of the site called “Maintenance and Improvement” not only provides a comprehensive maintenance list for the home—but can also help remind homeowners of important maintenance checkpoints.

Other documents in the maintenance section cover care and feeding of swimming pools and landscaping.

Many of these documents serve a dual purpose. First, they help the buyer understand that low-maintenance does not mean no maintenance, and secondly, they provide a paper trail of information showing that the builder explained what future maintenance should entail. The mere presence of those documents in an easily accessible place could be seen as a mitigating factor in any future lawsuit.

An important marketing feature is also built into the site. You might call it a soft-sell referral center. The community showcase is really an online, targeted sales center for potential move-up customers. It describes the latest models and communities under construction and tries to entice current owners into moving up with a list of amenities and community features.

To date, almost 500 home buyers have registered on the My New Surroundings Web site, and Mittelstadt says the domain gets about 2,500 visits per month.

What separates this Web-based customer care program from other flashy Web sites, says Mittelstadt, is that it is based on a study that he did of what the critical issues were for customers, not seat-of-the-pants guesswork.

“It's often true that the supplier [builder] has certain ideas about what the client wants or what is best for the customer,” Mittelstadt asserts. “But often that view is not accurate. That's where you need a program like this. This creates customer loyalty by design.”

VIRTUAL ROADMAP: This table shows how the My New Surroundings system works. Along with “in progress” photos, the Web site includes home maintenance instructions and dozens of valuable contacts to simplify moving in to a new home.