As you are well aware, customers these days expect more than ever before. They want to know that you care about them and that they are important to you, no matter what industry you are in. Overall, the more money people spend with you, the more they expect. So, when it comes to property and new homeowners, their expectations are ridiculously high.
A few decades ago, giving your purchasers a postal address or an email address was enough to please them. They would contact you with any queries or issues and you could get back to them in your own time, you would rarely be chased for delayed responses. Unfortunately, we can categorically say that this is no longer the case. In this day and age, people want a contact number and an immediate resolution to their issues. As a nation, we are becoming more impatient and expecting faster replies. This is something that can’t be shied away from.
For this reason, lots of developers are considering offering out of hours support lines for their homeowners, which is always a good idea if, you can execute it well. There is no denying that providing this type of customer service for new properties is a lot of work and your customers will expect a friendly informative member of staff at the other end of the phone no matter what time of day it is. Before you start to offer this service yourself, it is worth answering the following three questions:
How many properties do you have?
Where are these properties?
Can you solve emergencies straight away?
Think about this realistically, the more properties you have, the more phone calls you will get and the more members of staff you will need to deal with these calls. If your properties are all local to each other then it will be easier for you to distribute relevant contractors to the solve issues but if they are far apart then you will need to ensure that they can get to these places at any time. Lastly, you need to ensure that your contractors aware that if an emergency defect under their trade occurs, they’re obliged to respond 24/7/365.
With all of this in mind, out of hours support really isn’t as straight forward as it may seem. There is lots to think about and usually, it will require a whole new department to be set up. Personally, we are firm believers that the pros of offering this service greatly outweighs any cons and for this reason, After Build offers this service on behalf of property developers and can take over your out of hours defect management.
When outsourcing customer service and using After Build’s out of hours team, your customer’s calls will be automatically put through to them. These calls will then be screened to ensure that they are true emergencies as, unsurprisingly, they aren’t always. The After Build team will then help the customer over the phone by offering advice and sometimes this is enough to resolve their issue and if not, a contractor will be sent to the property.
There is no denying that working alongside a professional company to provide out of hours home owner support makes much more sense than providing this service yourself. You can rest assured that you will be providing outstanding customer service for your new homes and your customers will never be left with an emergency. This in itself will make you stand out from other property developers and will aid your reputation, which is always beneficial. You can offer this service without putting too much pressure on your own company. There really are no negatives!
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