Key lessons for home builders, housing associations & residential developers who want to deliver professional home handovers and 5-star customer reviews.
With a challenging macro environment creating uncertainty for new home buyers – and growing pressure on new home sales and customer care teams – it’s more important than ever for homebuilders to avoid these common new home handover mistakes and misconceptions about digitising the homeowner handover:
1. Under sharing – often, we hear the way to minimise customer queries is to share less information with homeowners. The opposite is true. But more than that, success is sharing the right information in an accessible and useful format so that homeowners can find the information they need when they need it. Sharing the right information in an accessible digital format will not only save your sales and customer care teams time and effort but also boost customer engagement and confidence.
2. “We’ve digitised already – the information is on our website”: generic homeowner information not tailored to the development, or homeowner is uninspiring and rarely engaged with. Buyers today – young and old – are app-savvy and familiar with using smartphones or tablets to get the information they need. Generic content can create more aftercare issues where the information does not align with reality in the customers’ homes, creating confusion and unnecessary customer queries.
3. “Customers want a physical handover package”? – Save the physical items for housewarming gifts. Handover packs need to be functional and create value for the homebuilder and homeowner. Today, that means a smart app with all the home and safety information the owner needs to enjoy and maintain their new home.
4. “We don’t have the time, people or money to digitise” – sticking with the familiar completion process might seem like the right thing to do when your team is stretched and under-resourced. However, the right technology can save you time and money while also delivering significant business process efficiencies.
5. “Embracing digital means we’ll get more negative reviews” – most negative homeowner reviews revolve around poor customer experience across the completion, handover and aftercare period. A lack of communication and access to useful, up-to-date information causes buyers a great deal of uncertainty and stress. A good digital homeowner handover will generate long-lasting relationships with customers and positive customer reviews.
If any of these concerns and mistakes are familiar to your organisation, contact Guided to see how we can help you quickly delight your homebuyers and empower your staff with a customisable homeowner app that quickly and cost-effectively transforms customer engagement, reviews, and efficiency.
