Effective customer service requires that builders focus as much on their culture as their information systems.

At a breakout session at a recent national conference, many of the technology managers at builder companies said that customer care and warranty management were the final pieces of the puzzle. The puzzle they referred to is an information technology integration project that took several years to deploy. Most agreed that at least two major obstacles stood in the way. First, builders are geared to producing homes, not servicing customers after the fact. Focusing on customer service requires a cultural shift that many builders admittedly find difficult. And second, the wireless products the technology vendors promised were slow to market.

Moving into 2005, the technology issue is well on its way to being solved, as wireless handhelds and smart phones cost less and are easier to use, and builders can now more readily set up wireless hotspots in model homes and construction trailers. On the cultural front, builders must change with the times. Homebuyers expect the same level of quality and customer service in a new home that they do when they purchase an automobile, consumer electronic device or appliance. The industry's leading builders may point with pride at their latest J.D. Powers customer service scores, but insiders know that very few builders have fully deployed a customer care/warranty management system.

The Customer Service seminar features three industry experts who will offer insights into how builders can roll out an effective customer service and warranty management system: Joe Turner, president at Joe Turner Customer Service Consulting; David Popler, vice president of business development at Corrigo; and John Radi, vice president of business development, at Builder MT.

Turner's presentation will offer an overview and evolution of customer service in the home building industry. Turner says new-home customer service is less than 30 years old, evolving from a time when customer service tended to minor repairs and replacements during a one-year warranty period to today's environment of demanding homeowners, litigious homeowner groups and complex state and federal warranty laws.

According to Turner, effective customer service is the product of teamwork in a service-oriented company culture. Sales, construction and warranty service are responsible for taking control of the buyer and keeping control from purchase through construction and into the warranty period. The way to manage all this is via technology.

David Popler's presentation will focus on his company's Web-based Corrigo application. Popler says Corrigo emerged from Motorola R&D in 1999 with the vision of electronically connecting all the key players in the service delivery process. For builders, this means managing punch lists and delivering warranty service in a new, more effective, way. Using the Web, wireless devices, plus phones, faxes, emails, and paging, today's systems can support the whole service process seamlessly. This means no manual "hand-offs" and no more handwritten notes. Popler's talk will feature a live demonstration of how builders use Corrigo's Web-based app in the field.

Radi's talk will focus on a holistic approach to customer care. Radi says this can be accomplished through true enterprise, resource and planning, and not by bolting products together or by bridging islands of information together by some data import or synchronization. According to Radi, "product integration" is too fuzzy a term.

Radi prefers calling it "workflow management." All the information at a warranty department's disposal is the direct result of input and output taken by the sales and design center, accounting, and the production department. It just makes sense that during the process of walking the home, job schedules, variance purchase orders, design documents, and punchlist information can be accessed. This information has a direct impact on the action points for the warranty and customer service process. The only data entry for the warranty department should be the generation of the work order, either wirelessly from the field or at a home office. All other job details are accessible through "true integration" of data.