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Ensuring Your Homeowners are Raving Fans
“Your customers are only satisfied because their expectations are so low and because no one else is doing better. Just having satisfied customers isn’t good enough anymore. If you really want a booming business, you have to create Raving Fans.”
This startling quote by authors Ken Blanchard and Sheldon Bowles is the theme of their timeless book on customer service, Raving Fans, and it applies perfectly to the homebuilding industry. Any successful builder knows that raving fans will lead to increased, valuable referrals.
At 132 pages, Raving Fans is a quick and easy read. It’s a memorable tale about a new Manager who is charged with improving customer service in his department and, with guidance from an unlikely mentor, discovers the three important steps to transforming customers into raving fans: 1) Decide what you want; 2) Discover what the customer wants; and 3) Deliver plus one.
These common sense steps involve envisioning exactly what you think the perfect experience for your customers might be and then asking your customers exactly what they want from you. The book stresses understanding that you can’t please everyone, and suggests concentrating only on offering the best you can within a certain window of customer service. By limiting the number of areas where you want to make a difference, the authors propose that you can provide outstanding service in one area rather than promising more than you can deliver. “Better to find a smaller service promise that you can deliver consistently,” the authors advise.
Finally, Blanchard and Bowles urge implementing change and improvement by just one percent at a time. This manageable goal keeps change from becoming overwhelming and also leads to increased consistency of your product, which customers will come to rely on. As your staff begins to consistently deliver on one service objective, you can slowly add another one percent goal.
Although the book provides a simplistic plan for improving customer service, it’s a good stimulus to create and implement your own vision that goes above and beyond industry standards. Just imagine the money you could save and the goodwill you could garner if all of your new homeowners were raving fans!
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Our Calling All Homeowners! Why Phone Surveys Work
Ensuring Your Homeowners are Raving Fans
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