The £45m bill that the industry pays for again and again

I make no excuses for recently highlighting the best in US house building as I am certain that UK house builders have a lot to learn from the best the USA has to offer.

I am not alone in thinking this. It appears that an NOP survey on behalf of a major service company has concluded the following: -

• the USA holds first place for customer service around the world and represents a gold standard that the UK and Continental Europe have yet to attain;

• the UK is rated the poorest for customer service compared with the USA and Continental Europe

• whereas some sectors have improved in the UK, the legal sector emerged as bottom of the league in terms of the numbers of customers reporting that they have seen no improvement in this sector.

I wonder where UK housebuilders would have come if they had been included? (If they had ended up being grouped with the legal sector, then the UK homebuyer looks to get a rum deal – or what?)

I have a feeling that many of us instinctively know where our industry would come. There seems to me a growing body of opinion which accepts that while UK housebuilders haven’t got any worse, most other industries have improved significantly and the gap is widening. Builders talk about it, suppliers talk about it, speakers at awards ceremonies talk about it, think-tanks talk about it, the NHBC talks about it, the Government talks about it and a recent BBC2 programme even shouted out about it.

What’s the problem?

I do not believe that anyone goes to work thinking, “Today I’m going to do a lousy job. I’m not going to do it right and I’m not going to finish it. I don’t give damn what the customer thinks because I quite like wasting my time and money going back to fix what I could have done right in the first place!”

I do believe that the average person goes to work to do the best job they can based on the skills they have and the motivation the job gives them. Contrary to popular belief, construction workers are not genetically incapable of quality work. I have first hand experience of this (see above).

I also do not believe that the bosses of UK housebuilders expect anything other than impeccable service from those who serve them. I seriously cannot imagine the following conversation ever taking place:

“I’m sorry, Sir, but we haven’t been able to finish your car – the parts haven’t arrived, there are grease marks on the carpet, the glass is scratched, but no problem we’ll put it all right when we snag it in two weeks time – OK?

“Sure no problem!”

So what do I believe?

I do believe that the person at the top should be ultimately responsible for every lapse in customer service and should be prepared to look into every nook and cranny of the organisation to find the causes and establish ways to eliminate them. Tony Pidgley was left in no doubt about this in BBC1’s Back to the floor. He said: “What I’ve forgotten in the past 20 years is where the sharp end of this business is – I’ve just found it.” I take my hat off to what he did and to the way he addressed his board in front of TV’s millions. His thoughts and actions should be repeated in every boardroom.

It’s time to stop hiding behind the “We build them outside in all weather and it can be difficult you know” attitude. A consumer used to fantastic quality and reliability in everything doesn’t want to know about your problems and doesn’t want a new home with locks that don’t work, windows that don’t open properly, central heating that doesn’t work and light switches that don’t light.

I also believe that some housebuilders leave themselves wide open to problems. For example, if you don’t tell your customers how their homes will be finished, if you don’t spend time pointing out the difference between shrinkage and real cracks, if you don’t give your customers detailed specifications, and if you don’t tell them exactly how you propose to fix problems when they occur, then you are inviting trouble because the uninformed customer is going to make up his own rules on how problems should be sorted out and - you probably won’t like them.

Many housebuilders are not aware of poor quality and the customer service issue it raises. Work it out for yourselves, the cost of listening to the customer complaints, organising the work, taking the trade away from new-build to fix the problem, completing the paperwork and so on. I have been given estimates of between £25 and £100 to fix an average problem. So if we take an average of £60 per job and five problems for each house multiplied by 150 000 houses a year. That’s £45m a year.

Whatever the true cost there are more than enough potential savings to pay for whatever training, motivation or re-organisation is needed to create an industry which gets it right first time – every time.

Many other UK industries have had to go through such changes but they have often been forced to change by international competition. They had no choice – it was change or die – remember motorcycles? UK housebuilders have no such catalyst - they will have to change because they want to change.

Shield your Achilles heel

UK housebuilding has come a long way in recent years. Designs are improving, homes are warmer, more secure and easier to live with. But poor customer service resulting from poor build quality and delivery to the customer remains the Achilles heel and until UK housebuilders accept this then the industry will continue to have a less than favourable public image.

Here’s Pidgley again to conclude: “The company’s reputation takes many years to build….you can design an estate which is one of the best, you can get the spec right. But if the customer does not feel you’ve looked after her – and it’s the small things in life that upset everybody – you’re only as good as the last customer. You’ve lost your reputation in 10 seconds.”