As a homebuilder, to really add value to your home options you must make the interior design and lifestyle design process enjoyable. You must also deliver a finished product that reflects the homebuyer's personal style. That is no small task.
And it begs the question: Are you working every day to make the experience and the finished home everything your homebuyer envisioned?
Unfortunately, many builders create beautiful model homes and sales centers that project a beautiful dream of the finished home. But fantasy and reality can be very different things, and your vision can fall far short of the homebuyers' dream of what their finished home's will be. Well-executed online customer service can help you to close that gap.
Web Beats Paper
As homebuyers move through the buying process, they are asked to make decisions and choices that will affect their finished homes. Homebuyers always want more time to make these selections, and they want more information to help them make their decisions. Giving them visual catalogs with the features, advantages, benefits and consequences of their choices helps them prepare for making decisions with more confidence, in less time. This helps the homebuilder to create finished homes that meet their expectations, increasing homebuyer satisfaction and reducing customer service demands. To facilitate this decision-making process, homebuilders can provide online catalogs to present options to homebuyers, and as the selection tools for the designers and options sales staff.
After final options selections are made, vendors and construction are responsible for building the home the homebuyer is expecting. Making multiple changes to a standard home while keeping construction schedules moving is difficult, especially when changes are indicated on random papers and faxes. Finishing the home accurately and on time is best accomplished by sharing all the information electronically. Automated email for real-time communication at the point of order allows everyone to know what homebuyers, designers and sales are doing when they do it. Online access provides everyone with the information they need, when they want it, without waiting or delay. Web-based communication tools reduce errors and shorten cycle times.
To conduct online customer service, start by answering the following: Can you operate online? In other words, is it possible for you to create online community options catalogs as the database, order-entry and operating system that provide the homebuyers with the information and images they need to improve the homebuying experience? It is possible to share the information about your homes with everyone involved in the selection process and supply chain, to improve the construction process, reduce errors, increase accountability, reduce cycle times, and ultimately increase profits and improve the homebuying experience. Is it possible to manage your options selection without paper and faxes?
Do you struggle with providing accurate timely information for construction, vendors and escrow? It is not only possible, it is happening with large and small builders alike, and with tried and tested programs that produce these results and make managing the options and design process a successful part of the business.
For those already involved in marketing new home technologies, it probably seems a contradiction that your state-of-the-art technologies are often presented in printed lists with minimal information. "Online Community Options Catalogs" allow you to present new home technologies in a way that matches the excitement your products can provide to homebuyers. Using electronic visuals enables homebuyers, designers, and sales to see what you are offering and where it will be placed in the home. Content management is a key to implementation and ongoing homebuyer satisfaction. Your service provider should be able to provide visuals and enhanced product descriptions for the online visual catalogs and be able to update product changes. This "Content Management Service" is key to making your online catalogs a success. This is an important feature, when you consider that the biggest challenge in marketing home technology is explaining how it can improve the customer's lifestyle.
A New Way of Thinking
If you are experiencing success as a homebuilder, and because of that success you are assuming you're doing something right, you're both right and gravely mistaken. You are obviously purchasing the right land and able to build homes in a reasonable time period. But that doesn't mean you are doing everything right by the homebuyer. Consider a recent list of the 10 worst things that can happen in life: One is the death of a loved one, two is divorce, and three is buying a new home.
Most builders have land acquisition and construction up to an acceptable level of performance. But too many fail at retailing their homes and managing the relationship with their customers. The homebuying experience is full of negatives, but has many opportunities to provide an enjoyable experience to balance the negatives. Technology can enhance and leverage the opportunities to improve the homebuying experience. Visual online options catalogs have been a hot topic for three or four years, but while they are still being researched and discussed by homebuilders, many others have successfully implemented systems that are working to increase sales and improve the homebuying experience by reducing errors and saving time.
Using technology to present and manage your options selections and communications is a sound business decision that can provide increased profits and improved homebuyer satisfaction. In turn, offering a full range of home technology products can enhance the enjoyment of the homebuying process and, more importantly, improve the living experience after your homebuyers' move-in.
Why Wait?
How much easier would customer service be if your homebuyers were enjoying the buying experience more? How much easier would customer service be if your homebuyers were enjoying their new homes and were excited about all their new toys?
There are plenty of stories about industry professionals future-proofing their homes and their businesses. But to do this you have to be using technology now, to keep up with technology in the future. You can never be competitive if you are always playing catch-up.
As with most things, there are drawbacks. The use of new technology creates the need for you to learn new systems and processes to create the results they are looking for. This takes time and support from your technology suppliers. Unfortunately, this time, effort and any past failure you have experienced tends to slow down the decision-making process about implementing new technology. This delay puts you at risk of falling further behind in the race to improve your business.
Success also makes us vulnerable to complacency and allows those who are moving forward with technology to be more competitive. To avoid that, check out what your competition is doing with technology and technology products. Find out how other builders are moving ahead and what's working to improve the homebuying experience.
The advantages of using online community options catalogs are dramatic. Builders can share their building services and home-tech options with homebuyers anywhere they have Internet access. Designers can use them at the design center to present and improve the selection of options.
Mike Moore is executive vice president of San Diego, Calif.-based Options Online. Dedicated to the field of interior design for new-home builders and their buyers, Options Online has been selling options electronically since 1997, using their patented Options Management System, OMS. Visit Options Online at www.optionsonline.ws.