Wow
with a Button
By Paul Cardis and Christian Caswell
We often talk about the
importance of developing your own "wow factor" - the one thing that
you excel at better than any other builder in your area. In today's competitive
market, it takes a wow factor to impress home buyers and add value to your
relationship. If you want to really make an impact on your customers, though,
look for ways to wow them at every point of contact in an unexpected way.
In most companies the primary wow factor is part of a long-term branding strategy,
something that is preplanned and often doled out by an administrator back
in the main office. It lacks creativity and elicits a mediocre response from
home buyers. A better approach that generates a true wow with customers requires
seemingly spontaneous acts of kindness and gestures of goodwill that help
cement your customer relations.
We call it Genuine Wow - an idea that originates with a housekeeper at a Four
Seasons hotel. A business guest was preparing for a big presentation when
she discovered a button missing on her blouse. When the housekeeper found
the distraught guest and learned what was wrong, she told the guest she may
have a matching button at home. With her supervisor's permission, she went
home and then quickly returned to sew the button on for the guest, with plenty
of time to spare before presentation time.
What sets this wow factor apart from more generic ones is that it was extremely
personal and spontaneous. A wow factor is not defined by the act, but by how
genuine the act is and the sense of gratitude it elicits.
Despite all the talk about best practices in customer loyalty, many builders
still race through construction in an attempt to close as many new homes as
possible. This reality of the market has builders erecting homes at breakneck
speed, only to spend months fixing them up during the warranty period. Then
they must try to win customers back with quick responses to service calls
and complimentary gift baskets or dinner coupons. But this is so much more
costly than doing the job right the first time and wowing customers in sincere,
yet modest, ways when they least expect it.
Of course, this requires that you empower employees - like the Four Seasons
housekeeper - to decide the appropriate opportunity to "Genuinely Wow".
A good idea is to make a list of scenarios each person in your company might
encounter when dealing with customers and pair them up with acceptable wow
gestures. Have employees keep track of the things they do for buyers so that
others in your organization can learn from them.
Whatever small gesture you do to impress customers, make sure they know what
you've done. Though your staff should be trained to do these things to be
kind, generous, supportive and helpful, they're also doing them to add value
to the builder-buyer relationship. This can't happen if all of your good deeds
go unnoticed.
A great builder example is one we experienced with a client who recently had
a warranty service call in the kitchen. As the tile guy repeatedly passed
through a sliding door leading to the backyard, he noticed that the door handle
was loose. So he brought over his toolbox, removed the handle, fixed what
was making it loose, and securely fastened it back to the door.
Later, he simply told the homeowner, "I hope you don't mind, but the
handle on your sliding door was loose, so I fixed it." That was it. No
excessive pause waiting for the homeowner to gush with gratitude. No mention
of how much the free labour would have cost. Just a simple mention to let
the customer know that the deed was done. This homeowner has since successfully
referred his builder to two new customers.
If you pay close attention, you'll see these random acts of kindness more
often than you'd think. There's the auto service shop that points out that
your car was taken through the washer when they were done, the vendor who
e-mails you an article or sends you a book just because he knows you're interested
in the topic, or even the dry cleaner who sews back a button and puts a little
card on that button indicating that it was fixed free of charge.
These unexpected surprises that evoke various "wow" responses are
much more effective at building customer loyalty than trying to impress buyers
with canned wows like car wash tokens and gift baskets.
Dig deep in your organization to create a culture that delivers genuine acts
of kindness to your buyers. The return on investment is huge and it's one
of the secret strategies used by those at the top.
HB
Paul Cardis (lefrt) and Christian Caswell are with AVID Ratings, Canada's leading provider of customer loyalty management services for the home building industry. They can be reached at paul.cardis@avidratings.com or christian.caswell@avidratings.com.