How Each Homebuilding Company Department Benefits from CX Management
It’s common to think customer experience (CX) management is only for your customer service team or sales and marketing because they work more directly with customers as the “face” of your company.
While the end-goal of providing a great customer experience is to improve ratings, reviews, and ultimately boost revenue, you can’t get there without evaluating every aspect of your business from the ground up and understanding how it affects the customer – in this case, the homebuyer.
A CX program collects, measures, and analyzes customer feedback, so every department receives invaluable insights to improve their processes and procedures. Here are some examples of how different departments within the company can benefit from customer experience management.
Sales
By improving the customer experience throughout the homebuying journey, customers will be happier and more likely to write an online review, give a builder a higher rating, and share their experiences with friends and family – all of which have a huge impact on sales.
Word of mouth is powerful for generating revenue. Referrals have a 30% higher conversion rate than regular marketing channel leads and are 4 times more likely to refer more buyers. The more referrals a builder gets, the less time and resources they spend prospecting new leads. Not to mention the people reaching out likely have a higher level of interest, which makes the sales process both more efficient and more lucrative.
Another way sales teams can use a CX management program is through performance assessment of individual team members. With AvidCX, satisfaction scores are available for each sales rep, making it easy to identify who is excelling above the rest. If the average sales rep score is in the mid-70s and one rep has a 86, a perfect opportunity is presented to learn how that rep’s sales approach differs from the group and establish some new practices amongst the group, or even across all of the communities.
Related: How to Leverage Your Promoters and Get More Referrals
Marketing
Customer experience management can take a lot of guesswork out of marketing strategy and make brand messaging more effective. It’s not enough now to just throw an ad up somewhere and hope for the best. Homebuyers today are like most consumers, they want personalized messaging and don’t respond to ads, social content, emails, or any other marketing materials that don’t speak to their wants and needs.
With a platform like AvidCX, marketing teams can analyze their customer database to clearly define homebuyer personas and create marketing campaigns that target those audiences. For example, established professionals who work from home and want a space that fits their unique needs would respond better to content about customizable homes than first-time buyers who might not have the budget. Marketing can also identify objections and motivators buyers have for new construction over resale and create messaging that overcomes or supports them.
Additionally, because CX management improves customer satisfaction and subsequently creates more positive ratings and reviews, it helps companies appear higher in local search engine rankings. If your company is on the first page of Google for “Homebuilders in Knoxville, TN” instead of page 3, for example, online visibility is enhanced meaning more potential buyers will find your website.
Learn more about improving brand awareness and visibility with customer experience here.
Related: Database Marketing Helps Drive Homebuilder Customer Acquisition
Purchasing/product management
Whether your company has a large architectural department, a smaller design & decor team, or a single person who makes decisions for product standards and upgrades, customer experience management can make a huge difference in the quality and perceived value of your homes.
By deploying customer surveys and evaluating in-depth feedback, your team can discover problematic products that are lowering customer satisfaction scores. For example, with AvidCX you can view categories of survey questions, then dig further into the data by viewing each question within those categories.
How does this help the team with product selections? Let’s say the team is looking at the average monthly satisfaction scores of 30-day post-occupancy surveys. Total satisfaction scores sit around 85 for most months, up until the last three months where scores dropped an average of 5 points. To understand why this sudden drop occurred, the team looks at the individual survey categories and notices the kitchen and bath category scores are lower than usual. By looking at the individual survey questions they see that homeowners started rating their kitchen faucets lower.
The team now knows what product is creating an issue and can start doing more research into the cause. Maybe the standard faucet option was recently replaced and the new product has an issue with leaks. The design team then goes back to the drawing board to pick a different model or manufacturer with a more reliable faucet and future scores improve.
Operations
A CX management program like AvidCX also aids in operational efficiencies by using customer feedback, data reports, and benchmarking capabilities to unearth which processes and procedures need improvement such as:
- Communication processes with homebuyers
- Trade partner performance
- Allocation of resources
Let’s look at two different examples:
1. A company’s trending data shows homebuyer satisfaction drops at the pre-delivery walk-through. When asked on the move-in survey if the perceived items listed for correction were what they expected, a large percentage of homebuyers indicate the number of incomplete items was more than expected. The company now understands there’s a communication issue and takes a more proactive approach to communication by becoming more transparent about which items will need attention after move-in, why they’re not done, and when they’ll be completed prior to the walk-through.
2. A company is looking at their benchmark report, comparing average customer satisfaction scores for their community developments. They notice a few communities are rating much lower than the rest. Upon further investigation into the data, they discover homebuyers are unhappy with their landscaping. Because they outsource their landscaping at these communities to a different company than the others, they realize it’s a trade partner problem. They can now take the necessary steps to reach out to their partner and discuss the issue or find a new company to work with.
With a proper CX management program, your company can also benchmark against other builders in your region and nationwide to see how your scores compare to industry averages. That information can help identify and eliminate operational gaps and improve changes for a competitive advantage.
Related: Benchmarking in Business: Overview for Homebuilders
Warranty
Homebuyer satisfaction statistically takes a nose-dive after move-in partially due to the “new home excitement” fading, but largely as a result of poor builder communication about warranty services and unclear homebuyer expectations of builder involvement post-occupancy.
Using a customer experience management program can reduce warranty claims by helping homebuilders:
- Deploy more proactive homebuyer warranty education: Surveying homebuyers helps determine how effective the company’s process is for communicating warranty services and be more proactive with communication. Maybe warranty education needs to be introduced earlier on in the homebuyer journey or discussed with buyers at additional touchpoints for repetitiveness. Perhaps warranty literature provided to homeowners needs to provide more clarity about topics such as what is covered, what is not covered, warranty end date, and how homebuyers can address claims after the builder is no longer involved.
- Take care of problems before move-in that could turn into claims later on: Like the faucet example earlier, when builders receive more detailed homebuyer feedback about the home products they install, they can detect items that could cause future trouble and switch those products out for better-performing models. This helps builders reduce the number of warranty claims they receive, simply by taking proactive steps to replace problematic appliances, systems, or even building materials.
Related: Homebuyer Journey Map Series: Warranty & Relationship Phase
Something for everyone
Managing customer experience is an entire company effort. With one gear out of whack in the system, the machine will struggle to function at an optimal level, or simply combust altogether. You can learn more about the benefits of CX management and book a demo of our platform here.
Are you ready to explore the possibilities of AvidCX?
Avid Insights Team
