What's sometimes brown and gold but rarely read all over? (OK, so it's hardly an original line, but stay with me on this, please).
This question and many others was posed at the recent Pacific Coast Builders’ Convention (PCBC) held in San Francisco. In typical understated American fashion, this three-day ‘regional homebuilders’ convention boasts a mere 20 000 visitors, a packed exhibition centre, and dozens of seminars covering everything from marketing strategy through customer care, the economy, today’s X generation consumers, quality build and custom building.
Builders large and small attend this convention. At the one-day Custom Builder Forum, most builders attending complete less than 50 homes per year. Conversely, during a keynote session we listened to two of the leading US homebuilders responsible for around 30 000 homes per year. Timothy Eller, chairman and CEO of Centex Homes and R Chad Dreier, chairman, president and CEO of Ryland Group, spoke in an open forum on such matters as the state of homebuilding, new building methods and future trends shaping the industry.
Anyway, back to the question - What is sometimes brown and gold but rarely read all over?
Answer - A typical leather bound/gold embossed new homebuilders' customer manual.
One wonders how many of these often expensive and lavishly produced items are lying long forgotten under new homeowners’ beds, alongside piles of old magazines and half-read books.
However, it is not only customers who sometimes never read the manual. Very often, employees of the homebuilder and its suppliers are even more in the dark as to what procedures, promises and tips can be found within its impressive covers.
Yet as was argued at the PCBC, many homebuilders now recognise their responsibility to guide their customers more effectively.
A comprehensive manual, delivered early in the buying process, informs buyers about important events during the building process and the legal completion and serves as a reference after move in. This education approach has been proven to work - increasing homeowner satisfaction dramatically and making the builder’s life easier.
A well-written manual offers you protection from unnecessary customer complaints (customers who don’t understand what to do are often the most likely to complain), and it offers your customers, staff and partners consistent and correct information.
According to the presenters - and I agree - the worst type of builder is one who offers no form of manual whatsoever.
The next worst is one who saves everything up until legal completion day and then hands it all over in one go.
This builder is likely to retreat to the imagined sound of trumpet fanfares in the customer’s mind as he marvels at the quality and beauty of his fabulous new manual, something to curl up in front of the new fireplace with on a winter’s evening and read from cover to cover.
Worse, he may well have an attitude that if the customer doesn’t follow the procedures written in the manual - especially with regards to important things like after sales service - then it’s the damn customer’s fault for not reading it, not his fault for delivering too much data at the wrong time.
This leads us on to another issue that came in for some debate at PCBC. Having spent so much time putting it together, how do you introduce the manual to your customers and how do you get them to read it?
Three clear messages came through.
Firstly, you’ve got to be committed to your manual, as must be your staff.
Secondly, you’ve got to find enough time to allow you to properly introduce your manual to your customers so that they see it as the Bible of homebuying, the place with all the answers.
Thirdly, you must make sure that you deliver information at the right times.
The future? Well, from other PCBC sessions, my guess is that the future will entail giving each customer coded access to a special customer only section on your website. There they will be able to read the manual, as well as see current photographs of their new home under construction, review the specification of their new home and other important information.
I was impressed with PCBC, not just by the event’s coverage, but by the fantastic value for money. Three days’ open access to all the conference sessions, plus a one-day comprehensive training session on customer care cost just $580.
As I gazed upon the assembled masses and marvelled at the sheer quality and enthusiasm of the speakers, many of them builders wanting to spread the word to other builders (in one seminar it was suppliers who were leading the way), I wondered why a customer care or marketing conference for homebuilders in the UK never lasts for more than one day, and rarely attracts more than 100 delegates.
Make sure your manual is user-friendly and well-used
Based upon the PCBC sessions, I have put together a set of questions to help you ascertain if your manual is likely to be used as a tool rather than as a bed prop. Ideally, you should be able to answer yes to all of the following:- Have you read the manual within the last three months?
- Do you carry a copy with you?
- Do your sales people, site managers, customer service teams, and all other staff with direct customer contact know and understand the contents of your manual?
- Do all of these members of staff have their own copy of the manual?
- Do all of your sales offices have a manual on show for customer/prospects to read, and is it introduced as part of the initial sales presentation?
- Is a manual always on the sales office desk to be referred to by the sales person in front of the customer? (This helps to reinforce its importance as a reference document).
- Do you ask customers to sign for their copy? (Reinforces its importance)
- Do you make sure that all new recruits read the manual as part of their induction process?
- Are all of your partner suppliers aware of any responsibilities they might have as a result of procedures described in the manual?
- At your sales, construction, customer service and/or staff meetings, do you test your staff on the contents of your manual?
- Do you hand your manual to the customer or start building up the contents of the manual soon after reservation?
- Do you ensure that all important items in the manual are gone through with the customer at least three times between reservation and just after legal completion? (Tell ‘em, tell ‘em, and tell ‘em again)
- Do you avoid trying to give too much information at times of highest stress? For example, at the point of legal completion.
Source
Building Homes
Postscript
Malcolm Pitcher is a director of PCL and In-house Research. He specialises in marketing strategy, brand strategy, culture change, change management, marketing research and customer satisfaction monitoring.
