Kick-up the Customer Experience in Your New Homes Sales Offices!

Over the last quarter, this Blog has focused on several consistent new homes-related themes: the emergence of Millennials as homebuyers, the impact of 55+ buyers on new home design, features and marketing, and the role of customer service as a referral driver.

SalesTouch lets 55+ shoppers dream and make it their own!

Have you been considering these topics and wondering how can my organization take these themes to boost our customer experience in a meaningful way in 2018?

A recent RetailCustomerExperience article by FullStory's co-founder, Scott Voigt, suggests, "You can win (sales) on customer experience." and summarizes, "Excellent customer experience can largely be distilled in two words, speed and convenience."

Voigt goes on to say, "The easier and quicker customers can find what they're looking for and get their questions resolved, the higher the conversion and the more loyalty you'll likely engender. And, loyalty means return customers" (as well as referrals!).

SalesTouch meets the Millennial shopper with focused and relatable content!

Here at CPS, we often say that home shoppers are no different than shoppers in other locations: they want information, quickly, and they're comfortable shopping via touch.

Take a look at the images presented from SalesTouch interactive touchscreen presentations. The 55+ buyer is actively engaged, trying out floorplans, dragging and dropping furniture into her dream home! The Millennial home buyer is presented with focused content and relatable images describing offered energy savings -- an item Millennials frequently cite as important to their buying process.

Voigt finishes, "The customer experience you offer is the single biggest way to compete."

We'd be thrilled to discuss how you can make 2018 the Year of Customer Experience -- contact us via our Info link!

Storytelling Helps You Facilitate Customer Engagement

Did you happen to see Simon Fraser's post in Retail Customer Experience entitled, 7 Keys to Customer Experience Happiness?  Fraser suggests business customer experience efforts should never just be an initiative or a fad.

Social Media Wall: Encouraging storytelling!

Customer experience efforts, in other words, need to be communicated as part of the overall business vision -- and delivered consistently.

And, business goals, Fraser offers, are enhanced when there's a focus on creating great stories.

Members of your organization -- and your clients -- get a positive experience as a result of building memories.  Who doesn't remember experiencing "that feeling" when hearing a great customer experience story?

Have you considered how you are telling your stories?  Are they static stories on the wall or in a brochure -- or are you encouraging your customers to take information, add their experiences and start creating their own narrative around your brand?

Take a look at CPS Social Media Wall: it starts with your vision -- copy and images -- and adds in stories using social media content.  Stories emerge from your vision, yet are dynamic and ever-changing as customers start adding their own.

Every business and person has stories to tell -- and all of us get pleasure from hearing and seeing them! Ask how how Social Media Wall can facilitate the customer engagement for you!

Builders: Mobile Power for Your Warranty Vendors & Homeowners

A recent Retail Customer Experience article by Tom Goodmanson suggests successful brands are always evaluating plans for creating improved customer experiences and building customer loyalty. Today, many find home building to be more brand-focused and retail-oriented than ever.

Offer Mobile To Your Homeowners!

What better time to evaluate and solidify customer strategies than early 2017? Goodmanson makes several 2017 predictions including: mobile customer service will close the gap between consumer expectations and reality.

Combine those thoughts regarding customer service (Go Mobile!!) with the anticipated tsunami of entry level buyers, highly driven by millennials who are already mobile-oriented, and it suggests that adding mobile to the new home experience makes sense for 2017.

And, the experience doesn't stop in the sales center!

Today's home buyer has high expectations regarding their home and the post-sale warranty process in terms of timeliness, quality and reliability.  Make sure your warranty/customer service organization is capable of responding to those requirements -- as well as the goals of improved customer experiences through mobile access.

Let your home owners submit warranty requests using CPS' WarrantyWatcher software from your website using their laptop, smartphone or tablet - and provide the same access to review request status and overall problem resolution history. Vendors have the same cross platform and browser functionality -- from desktop to devices.

CPS has been helping builders offer improved customer service for over 30 years -- let us show you how WarrantyWatcher can improve your customer's experiences!

Customer-Centric Retail Model is Key

Have you had a chance to check out the recent Retail Customer Experience article regarding the need to develop and sustain a customer-centric focus -- regardless of your industry?

CPS' Social Media Wall:
Engaging and understanding customers

Author Micah Friedman, with Cognizant, suggests developing new business and operating models to better deliver on customer needs and desires.

Businesses aren't silos any longer (if they ever were). Rental car companies, as an example, need to consider themselves as being in the transportation business and recognize the validity of competition from Uber, Lyft, SmartCar and others that aren't traditional rental car competitors.

What's critical, Friedman suggests, is considering multiple ways of engaging customers with a richer, customizable and frictionless experience.

One focus point is optimizing Social Media. Here's an opportunity to understand customers better (by evaluating their tweets and posts, for example) as well as providing a mechanism to shape how customers perceive them and their offerings.

Take at look at CPS' Social Media Wall in a new master plan community information center.  It's visually welcoming and designed to engage visitors from the moment they walk in -- delivering traditional marketing copy and community images side-by-side with consumer generated content.  Have a special event planned? Assign a unique hashtag, start posting information about the event and, at the event, ask attendees to submit pictures and comments.  Result: a shared,  creative process fostering an ongoing conversation!

Home Builders: Millennials Like to Use Mobile for Customer Service

A recent Retail Customer Experience article by Tom Goodmanson suggests successful brands are always evaluating plans for creating improved customer experiences and building customer loyalty. Today, many find home building to be more retail-oriented than ever.

WarrantyWatcher
Home Buyer Portal Goes Mobile!

What better time to evaluate and solidify customer strategies than the start of 2017? Goodmanson makes several 2017 predictions including: mobile customer service will close the gap between consumer expectations and reality.

Combine those thoughts regarding customer service (Go Mobile!!) with the anticipated tsunami of entry level buyers, highly driven by millennials who are already mobile-oriented, and it suggests that adding mobile to the new home experience makes sense for 2017.

Today's home buyer has high expectations regarding their home and the post-sale warranty process in terms of timeliness, quality and reliability.  Make sure your warranty/customer service organization is capable of responding to those requirements -- as well as the goals of improved customer experiences through mobile access.

Let your home owners submit warranty requests using CPS' WarrantyWatcher software from your website -- and provide the same access to review request status and overall problem resolution history. The Home Buyer Portal is available across platforms and browsers -- from desktop to devices.

We'll be in Orlando January 9-11 for IBS 2017; drop by Booth W5583 and let us show you how WarrantyWatcher can improve your customer's experiences!

Builder Sales Offices and the Ever-Changing Consumer Landscape

Generally, we focus on the new home sales, marketing and construction management landscape. Today we're adding a bit of a more "retail" experience focus kicking-off with a recent Jane Meagher (she's with Success Strategies) comment,

In 2016, builders need to think like retailers selling new homes,                                                     rather than construction companies building homes they then sell.

Are you starting to think like a retailer?

 Meagher continues,

Let's strategically focus on influencing our buyers...like all smart retailers do.

Couple those thoughts with recent  Doug Stephens (he's known as a retail and consumer futurist) comments. Stephens analyzes trends -- financial, media, demographic, technology -- in order to provide insight into consumer and brand relationships.  

Stephens was asked, in a recent Retail Customer Experience interview, how to describe today's consumer and what is the top expectation in a retail transaction (remember: home builders are being encouraged to think like retailers!).

Try taking your immersive tools out!

Stephens suggests that, regardless of age, geography or economic strata, consumers are empowered.  And, it's not just technology doing the empowering, it's what he labels an unprecedented level of access to choice and information. 

One final thought, for today's blog, is Stephen's idea that consumer's expectations depend on what they're buying.  Stephens breaks the purchase experience into two categories: 

• fast, easy and frictionless (you might think website or fast food here) 
• exclusive, personalized and immersive (sales offices and design centers should be here)

Meagher mentions further, We need to thrill and delight our buyers with their (options) selections experiences.  

Would you consider evaluating your sales office experience in light of these thoughts?  Stephens says many organizations are intellectually aware of the need to change but plagued by process inertia. CPS can help you look at exciting, innovative and effective consumer engagement tools -- from interactive touchscreens to social media walls to tablet experiences.  You can adapt, innovate and keep in sync with today's changing consumer objectives!

Steps to Building Brand Loyalty

Remember clienteling? That's the blending of digital and physical worlds in order to maximize your customer's buying journey. Check out an earlier Blog for more details here.

Whole Foods blends digital and physical with a Customer Comment Board 

Without an exceptional customer experience, Chad Hendren suggests, it is very difficult to create brand loyalty.

Think about even the simplest exceptional experiences you've encountered: the Costco sample tasting stations, Nordstrom's "anytime" return policy, Enterprise-Rent-A-Car's willingness to pick you up at home. There's no doubt you'll compare your next purchase experience at a similar business to what you've already experienced and consider as an example of great customer service.

A well-known rule of thumb is it costs 5 times as much to attract a new customer than to keep an existing one. Why not focus marketing time and effort on building loyalty by creating amazing experiences with your current customers?

Do you shop at Whole Foods Market?  Have you ever asked a Team Member for help locating something? They'll walk you across the store to locate the requested item!

Think about that customer journey -- and the amazing customer service you just experienced -- and you recognize they're extending that one-on-one experience with an omnichannel customer service platform.

Whole Foods has placed interactive touchscreen-based Customer Comment Boards in their stores so shoppers can submit comments, make requests, watch video, check the latest store specials, view Twitter feeds -- and thank Team Members!  It's a seamless, end-to-end customer experience.  Store Management can extend the proactive customer service by reaching out with an email regarding the shopper comment or Thank You.

Retail Customer Experience suggests that going omnichannel -- bringing multiple channels together, makes it possible to exceed customer expectations with experiences focused on customer needs.  CPS offers interactive Comment Boards --  contact us to determine if proactive customer service can help increase your brand loyalty!