Only Customers Can Tell You What They Think About Their Satisfaction
Companies sometimes make that mistake, too. Remember the XFL (Extreme Football League)? Or Gerber’s Baby Food for Adults? Or the ill-fated New Coke? These are all cases of companies thinking they knew what the customer wanted when in real life it just wasn’t so.
Builders aren’t exempt when it comes to thinking they know their customers without actually asking them. Our company recently conducted a builder survey. We asked 2,600 builders nationwide that have annual volumes ranging from fewer than 50 to thousands of homes how they use home owner feedback to improve their businesses.
Why Builders Don’t Survey
The vast majority (75%) of builders we surveyed don’t survey their buyers. We asked them why, and these were their top five reasons:
- We’re already customer focused.
- Surveys are too complicated (either for us or our home owners).
- We don’t get meaningful reports that help us manage the business better.
- Only dissatisfied home owners respond.
- We don’t receive information that we didn’t already know.
Wow! And I thought I was arrogant in believing people wanted cheap shoeshines and aftershave.
Say I’m old-fashioned, but give me a builder who realizes customer satisfaction surveys are as much a part of the home building process as the quality of basic construction and I’ll show you a builder whose business will endure any hiccups in the economy.
Most Home Owners Want to Answer Survey Questions
In defense of builders, nothing is perfect. Houses are handmade. However, recognizing that houses are imperfect is not enough to get you off the hook if you don’t survey your home owners. For the most part, your home owners will value the opportunity to respond to a survey.
Three Tips About How to Conduct Surveys
Whether you currently survey or need to begin surveying your home owners, what can you do to get useful feedback from your customers? Here are three tips:
- Don’t do it yourself — Retain an independent company, ideally one that specializes in surveys.
You’re probably a conscientious builder who truly values customer feedback, but chances are you don’t know about “language bias,” response formats or good question design. A survey from an independent source will have a lot more credibility with your buyers than one sent out by your company.
- Figure out your objectives — What do you want to know from the survey? Your objectives will shape your survey questions.
Certainly you want to learn what your company can do to better improve the home buying and building experience. Knowing what your customers want and using that knowledge to improve and develop new products is just as important as good customer service.
- Don’t get carried away — Avoid the temptation to tackle all the issues with a single survey, or your customer will be overwhelmed.
Limiting the survey to 30 questions makes it more focused and concise and yields better measurements and feedback. Customers won’t answer a long survey.
Only the customer can tell you what they think about their satisfaction. They have entered into a business partnership with you and want to talk about their building experience. It costs money to survey and the responses can be painful, but it’s not nearly as costly or painful as ignoring your home owner’s need to provide feedback.
Paul Clem is president of How America Thinks, the Overland, Kan.-based company that developed RateMyBuilderOnline, a Web-based tool for measuring consumers’ satisfaction with home builders. For more information, e-mail Clem or call him at 913-469-0070 x14.
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