green building • take the time to explain those standards to their customer. • are sensitive to what matters to a home owner when they explain their standards. Use the WIIFM (What’s In It For Me) approach to communication. If you are explaining why you use a certain brand of window, put that in the context of why it’s important to your customer. • schedule customer site walks regularly; let them see what you are doing and let them ask questions. • keep the site clean, sweep it every day. While that may not matter to the construction process it has an enormous impact on your customer’s perception. It also sends a strong message to your crew that you are committed to your customer and to quality. • when a customer ask questions or has concerns, respond to him or her respectfully, even if their question is about something typical of home construction and something that you have seen hundreds of times. They don’t know that! Second, to respond quickly and timely. In various surveys that I have seen, the most frequent complaint about residential builders is that he or she did not call me back! That seems pretty simple but I have seen it become the root of major construction disputes and legal battles. We are all busy. However, at the time that customer calls you and has a problem, that’s the most important thing in his or her world and it’s about a house that he or she has just paid you a lot of money to own! Here are some policies I am aware of that help keep focus on timely responses: • all voice mails are answered within 4 hours, and follow up if you don’t make live contact; just leaving a voice mail doesn’t mean you have answered the call • follow up site visits are scheduled within 48 hours (24 hours if possible) • if work is needed and can be done by your crew, it is completed with 48 hours following the site visit • if work is not needed, the visit and resolution is documented and shared with the customer within 48 hours of the site visit
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MID-ATLANTIC BUILDER May/june 2011
• if work is needed and requires material purchase and/or subcontractor coordination, those details are worked out and a specific schedule and plan is provided to the customer with 48 hours of the site visit This type of policy should be shared with your customer as part of your marketing material and at your first personal contact. Mature adults recognize that no one is perfect. It adds substantially to your credibility when you disclose how you deal with questions and concerns. Of course, once you put such a program in place, you must live up to it. Developing your signature isn’t simple, but it works! There are builders I know who spend virtually nothing on advertising. Their customers hear of them through reputation and word of mouth. And those same builders are usually able to charge a bit more for their homes. They realize they are a builder selling a service not just a home. For them saw dust has become “magic dust.”
John Smith – A Builder you can Trust As you read my columns, if you have questions, please feel free to send me an e-mail (hamoooney@criterium-engineers.com), I will try to respond in a future issue or respond to you directly. Working together, my goal is to help explore new and better ways for you to build homes that you can be proud of and that will turn your customers into some of your best sales people! n Criterium Engineers has specialized in residential construction for more than 50 years, with more than 60 offices in more than 30 states. We have evaluated more than 750,000 buildings. H. Alan Mooney, P.E, President of Criterium Engineers, is a licensed, Professional Engineer in 8 states, with more than 35 years experience and has been the author and presenter for various NAHB programs, mostly on construction quality. For more information, please visit www.criteriumengineers.com and www.criterium-quality.com.
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