Customer Insight is rapidly becoming an area of greater interest for many industries and Builders are no different. We've shifted from a sell-to model of pitching customers a product, to a customer journey model where consumers decide when and where they engage with your company and how they proceed in getting to know you. The average customer travels 70% of their buying journey before engaging with a sales person. That's a change worth noting.
Our Builder clients are telling us that they are focused on customer experience design as it applies to the buying experience in addition to how it applies to living in their new homes and communities. And it makes sense! Builders have to understand how people make decisions to purchase their ideal living spaces and deliver a buying experience that rivals the excellence of the home product itself.
Customer Insight is now an asset as valuable as Land and Location. Integrating the Voice of the Customer across all functions, enables Builders to attract like-minded prospects to their communities. McKinsey wrote a short article that addresses the challenges around getting customer feedback metrics and connecting them to the right operational units for improvement or change. It's worth a read if you have five minutes.
I recently received a two question survey from Listen360, a customer feedback platform that combines short NPS-style survey questions with Dashboard simplicity that helps businesses crystalize customer feedback and convert it into actions. Listen360 enables decentralized companies (like Builder enterprises) to measure customer feedback at different milestones in the customer journey. It then puts actionable information into the hands of Marketing, Sales, Customer Service, Operations and Construction to design improvements and innovate. I was so impressed that we decided to formalize a partnership with Listen360 as a channel partner focused on the Builder Vertical.
Ironically, the Listen360 survey appeared in my email as I was watching this HBR video about what it means to put the customer at the center of your business. I had also been reading about how Builders are reorienting themselves toward consumers. I had been thinking about the idea that we sell a product that people live in, but we don't always know enough about how people live. Historically, the industry has been focused on the product itself more than how people live in the product. That is changing of course, and Builder's are finding inventive ways to tell customers that they are listening. Pulte recently trademarked their "Everyday Entry"to highlight their insight that the movement to and from a home with a family can be a chaotic time of day. It's an innovation centered around how people live in their homes.
Customer Insight doesn't have to be a complex task delivered by a staff of researchers. Cloud technology is making it easier for companies large and small to be agile and responsive to customers. One small insight like the Pulte example above, can make a big impact.
Thanks for stopping by. Let us know how you are implementing your Voice of the Customer efforts. If you are really passionate about this topic, we'd love to interview you for our blog. Please connect with me at leslie@builderpromotions.com
Cheers!
Leslie Bridges, Chief Blogger
Marketing Blueprints is sponsored by Builder Promotions, an e-commerce company and group buying platform designed to help Builder Marketers procure branded products and marketing supplies used throughout the new home selling cycle.
