Go ahead, make their day

Want to make your customers happier and along the way possibly even improve your rating in the Housing Forum's next National Housing Customer Satisfaction Survey? It may not be as difficult as you think. A survey of homebuyer satisfaction by Zurich Insurance's Building Guarantees division suggests that some relatively straightforward changes at home handover stage could give that crucial feelgood factor to buyers.

A pre-handover inspection and a clean home are just two services that homebuilders are failing to provide as a matter of course for their customers, yet they play a key part in satisfaction. "No one ever comments on how clean a new car is. Things like that are so fundamental they are a given. They don't hurt until they are not done," says marketing consultant and Building Homes columnist Malcolm Pitcher, who carried out the research. "What the survey shows is that homebuilders don't spend enough time on customer care in the week before, the week during and the week after moving in."

The survey was carried out for Zurich Insurance's Building Guarantees division as part of its Customer First Awards. The annual awards are intended to measure homebuilder performance in the two key areas of build quality and customer satisfaction. Zurich announced the winners of its awards last month, with Persimmon acquisition Leech Homes taking overall volume housebuilder and Colin Amos Builders of Leek, Staffordshire, declared top local builder.

Survey results echo those of the Housing Forum's first National Housing Customer Satisfaction Survey, published last October, which assessed buyer opinion of the country's top 59 homebuilders. That survey found that buyers were highly satisfied with the design quality of their new home, but much less happy with the service they received from their homebuilder. Zurich's survey focuses on the service aspect in detail, and provides lessons for all homebuilders. "This survey focuses on a very narrow, very important period of time," says Pitcher. "It is a critical time for homebuyers when first impressions count," says Martin Horsler, manager of Zurich Building Guarantees. "Buyers have high expectations and don't need to be disappointed on day one by things that are easy to put right."

The number of homebuilders giving their customers a pre-handover inspection has risen from a year ago, but the practice is still far from universal (see chart). On move-in day itself, buyers are finding that their new home is highly likely to still have snags that have to be attended to and to be far from clean. Such factors compound to make two thirds of homebuyers conclude that their builder has not made them feel special.

New homes remain beset by those perennial problems of leaking plumbing, and ill-fitting windows and doors. The incorporation of new technology appears to be presenting some teething problems. The security system, a feature that is marketed as an added-value benefit, becomes a source of irritation for the 10% of buyers who have to have remedial work carried out.

As a result of their experience with homebuilders, buyers who start out with an enthusiasm for, or at least an open mind about, new build, come away from the process far from delighted. A third of buyers conclude that buying a new home has been a worse experience than expected, with just 16.9% finding it better than expected. "Most homebuilders are good at setting out their stall initially, and buyers are happy with their home at the end of the day," says Pitcher. "But homebuilders have to see the time between selling and completing the house as a necessary part of the process."