Reasons You Should Be Using Home Builder Customer Surveys

The voices of your homebuyers are highly important. As a home builder, understanding your customer is key to making sales. A home is one of the most important purchases that consumers will ever make, which means that understanding the customer mindset is crucial for forming meaningful relationships with your homebuyers. Knowing exactly what they’re looking for in a new home and their expectations for the homebuying process can help you adjust your marketing strategy for optimal results.

One of the best ways to build this connection is through home builder customer surveys. 

Guessing what your potential customers are thinking may cause your team to waste their time, efforts or money without truly addressing the root of customer complaints. Instead, surveys help you get right to the source and tap into the thoughts and feelings of your intended audience. The digital tools available to us make it easier than ever to conduct your own survey, whether that’s online or in person.

Conducting regular customer surveys is a way to ensure that your company is consistently meeting their needs. Surveys also give you the information the company needs to continue growing and evolving to satisfy your customers. Here’s what you need to know about home builder customer surveys and why you should be using them. 

What Are Customer Surveys? 

Customer surveys ask current, former and potential customers key questions about their experience with your business. They can be conducted in a number of different ways — online, over the phone or in person.

You can use home builder surveys to discover vital information about your customers. What are their likes and dislikes? Who are they as an individual? What draws them to your company?

Surveys can pose questions to your home builder website visitors, prospective customers or existing customers and use that to shape marketing campaigns. Questions within your survey can include a variety of topics to delve into who your customers are, as well as their preferences and expectations for their homebuying experience.

• Demographics – What do your customers typically look like?
• Homebuying Preferences – What features do your homebuyers want to see in a new home? How do they prefer to shop for a home? What do they think of the company’s potential marketing ideas?
• Satisfaction Level – Did your homebuyers receive what they wanted in their new home? What would they improve about their home/buying experience? Would they recommend your company to others? What would they like to see in the future?

What Are the Benefits of Using Customer Surveys? 

There are a number of benefits to using customer surveys, which is why they have become so prevalent in many industries.

1. Get to Know Your Customers

One of the biggest benefits is that they can give you an idea of who your customers actually are and what they are looking for. You might have developed a target persona for your customers, but that could be completely different from the people who are actually buying your homes. It’s important to unify the customer identity you’ve formed with the details garnered from their experience to improve your customer satisfaction. This information can affect how you market your homes, as well as the platforms you use to do so. 

2. Refine Your Customer Experience

Another key benefit of customer surveys is that they can help you streamline the customer experience with actionable data. Through their responses, you’ll learn what’s most important to your homebuyers — and what you can leave out. Buying a home is one of the biggest decisions that your customers will ever make and simplifying their process reflects well on your company. Your customers will likely also have perspectives that you haven’t considered, which could help you solve key challenges. Home builder customer surveys with insightful questions can offer your team a deep look at the aspects of your customer experience that homebuyers enjoy, as well as the facets that displease them and may require improvement.

3. Improve Customer Loyalty and Retention

Asking for customer feedback allows your company to understand what drives or deters customer satisfaction and use that information to bolster customer loyalty. Surveys convey to your customers that you care about what they have to say and that in itself can have a positive impact on your brand image. Conducting surveys also offers a way to build stronger relationships with your homebuyers, which is incredibly important as they make this highly emotional-driven purchase. Effective customer surveys indicate that you’re invested in your customers and dedicated to meeting their needs.

You can also use existing customer feedback to address their needs and stay ahead of your competitors. Customer retention for home builders might look a bit different than it would look in other industries, as consumers don’t buy new homes very often.

4. Gain More Customers

Brand loyalty can also benefit you in other ways. By improving customer satisfaction efforts and anticipating buyer needs, you’re more likely to have happy customers with glowing testimonials about their experience. Satisfied customers won’t hesitate to share their great experiences with their friends and family. This word-of-mouth is incredibly valuable because it offers potential homebuyers a transparent perspective of your company that they can trust. Getting to know each new customer better delivers a chance to improve your services and gain even more new customers – the cycle never has to end!

5. Enhance Company Performance

Receiving feedback from your target audience provides a fantastic opportunity to assess for weak spots within your company’s performance and evaluate ways to improve. Take control of the customer experience by committing your company to finding customer survey solutions whenever possible. With the knowledge you gain from customer feedback, your company can enhance and develop services that provide long-term value. Not only will this lead to improved results with customers, but it will also motivate your employees to learn the outcomes of their customer service efforts and how they can continue improving.

Tips for Effective Home Builder Customer Surveys

You’ll need to spend time carefully crafting your customer surveys to ensure that you get valuable information in return. Here are some tips to help you get the most out of your customer survey experience. 

Be Thoughtful About How and When You Conduct Your Surveys. 

Ideally, your customer surveys should align with the company’s vision and goals for its performance. Think about what kind of information is most important to you and use that to influence when you conduct your surveys and the questions you pose. 

For example, if you’re most interested in improving your sales process, you could conduct a survey after an open house or even after a sale has closed. Alternatively, if you’re just looking for feedback on your initial marketing or more information about customer demographics, you can conduct your surveys earlier. If you want to gain insight on the homebuyer experience throughout the process of purchasing their home, you can also ask their opinion at several points during their journey with your company.

Although assessing the experiences of customers who purchased from your company is a great way to receive valuable feedback, it’s also beneficial to seek insight from those who chose not to buy. By asking these homebuyers what turned them away, your company can uncover what may be costing you prospective homebuyers or how competitors are outperforming the business.

Choose Survey Methods that Work Well for Your Customers

To ensure consistency, it’s important to select routine, long-term survey methods that reliably attain customer feedback. Consider how your customers enjoy communicating and where surveys can be implemented for their convenience.

In today’s highly digital world, online surveys are often the way to go. There are plenty of survey tools and companies available that you can use to administer the questions and analyze the results. However, depending on the depth of your questions and your customer base, you might also consider a phone or in-person survey for a more personal touch. Keep in mind that these can take more time and effort to organize. 

Encourage Specific Feedback. 

Obtaining valuable feedback truly comes down to asking the right questions, so make sure to carefully devise thought-provoking queries that engage each individual. Receiving extremely detailed feedback is the only way that your customer surveys will truly make a difference. A good mix of open-ended and yes/no questions can help you get a good picture of how your customers felt. For example, you can start by asking if their experience with your staff was positive or negative and then ask why.

Provide abundant opportunities for customers to make comments throughout your survey so they may provide more detailed information and valuable insights. Some customers may praise certain company features, while others may air their major complaints. Either way, all feedback is beneficial as it allows your team to better understand customer needs moving forward.

Don’t forget to always keep your questions neutral — if they sound biased towards your company, you may not get the honest feedback you need to improve.

Keep it Short and Sweet.

Not every customer is going to want to complete a survey, as this does take extra time on their part. If you make your survey too long, customers may not want to commit the time to finish it. Determine what your end goal is and what information you’d most like to know at the end of the survey and focus on that.

Each customer’s time is valuable and it’s best not to exhaust their attention with unnecessary questions that may take more time than expected. Ensure that any open-ended questions are optional so that each participant doesn’t feel as if they have to dedicate too much time to complete the survey.

After you’ve selected your questions, don’t be afraid to go back and cut the ones that aren’t essential. You can also opt to ask each survey recipient if you can follow up with them later. This gives you the ability to ask clarifying questions without making the initial survey too long. 

Thank Participants for Their Feedback

Always be sure to thank every participant for completing the survey. Whether you send a nice thank-you email or provide an incentive for the survey completion, this shows each customer that you appreciate their feedback.

Start Conducting Insightful Home Builder Customer Surveys with Milesbrand

Customer surveys are a great way for home builders to connect with their customers. In many cases, directly asking customers what they care about is the best way to improve your brand identity and sales process.

Ensure that you get the most out of your customer survey feedback and deliver insightful solutions by partnering with Milesbrand. Customer surveys are just one aspect of the branding process — contact Milesbrand today to learn more about our branding solutions for home builders.