Part 1 in our Series: 6 Technology Trends Builders Can’t Ignore in 2016

A convergence of digital and online technologies is beginning to profoundly transform our industry. Six technology trends in particular will revolutionize homebuilding, from marketing and sales to design and construction. What we do with these technologies will enhance buyers’ perceptions of our brand and engagement with our people, as well as their lifestyles, comfort, and security when they move into our homes and communities. The next generation of homebuyers expects us to embrace the promises of these six technologies as they do, and will reward our innovation with loyalty and brand advocacy. The first post in the series focuses on the Digital Customer Experience.

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Creating a comprehensive digital customer experience requires measuring and improving the experience at every customer touch point: marketing, sales, construction, field, and warranty. It’s about being everywhere your customer expects you to be – on every device, through every sales channel – in order to improve engagement, satisfaction, and loyalty.

Research proves that delivering a superior customer experience in the digital age is critical to your success:

  • By 2017, 89% of executives expect the customer experience to be the prime basis for competition. [Tweet This] Gartner, 2014
  • “Digitally mature” companies have significantly better business performance. MIT & Capgemini Consulting
  • Just 5% of companies say they do digital well enough to make it a competitive advantage. Forrester, 2015
  • Companies can use digital customer care to boost satisfaction by 33%. McKinsey, 2015

The digital customer experience is the accumulation of seamless interactions across the customer’s journey that adds up to a best-in-class reputation for those that deliver it. Reaching payoff requires substantial investments in marketing strategies, technologies, mobile apps, and services.

CEOs may be reluctant to embrace digital, especially when customer service scores are currently satisfactory or better. Potential incremental gains are lower, with a lower possible return on investment. This scenario is highly prevalent in our industry, and leaves good builders vulnerable to those delivering poorer service, but with the capital to turn things around. In any case, providing projections on near-term returns may be difficult, but the macro-economic case is compelling.

Why invest heavily in a digital customer experience?

According to Forrester Research’s 2007-2014 Customer Experience Index studies, the top ten customer experience leaders generated a total return over this seven-year period of 77.7%. [Tweet This] The S&P 500 Index generated a 51.5% total return during that period. On the other hand, the bottom ten customer experience laggards generated a paltry -2.5% return. To underline this finding, in one of America’s strongest bull market runs, companies offering the worst customer service experienced negative returns.

Digital experience benefits work their way to the bottom line, beginning with improved retention, repeat business, and referrals. Customers are less price sensitive in the models they choose and are more trusting in your ability to make added options smart long-term investments. Customers are happier, marketing costs are lowered as word-of-mouth generates more leads, and your expenses associated with detractors and PR crises are reduced. All of this can result in dramatic revenue growth and higher margins.

Begin with a consistent customer service ethos.

The first step in this process is to review your customers’ experiences along their journey from home shopping to warranty repairs. Train all of your front-line personnel to be willing to see issues from the customer’s perspective and make sure they are committed to delivering on expectations. They must value honesty, integrity, and fairness, and they must behave consistently, so that the customer recognizes your organization’s customer service ethos in each interaction.

Deliver a seamless communication experience.

Once a commitment to customer service values is in place, you can begin formulating your messaging for every step in the sales cycle. Marketing messaging, as well as how you listen and respond to customers, your corporate objectives, graphic design, and application functions must be standardized across communication channels. If you’re where most builders are in this process today, you will be evolving from multi-channel leveraging of several channels and devices, to Omni-channel integration of a personalized, consistent experience across all channels and devices. Start slowly and methodically, standardizing your current channels and devices before integrating new ones.

Best-of-breed businesses use data segmentation and marketing automation to perfect the experience, [Tweet This] delivering tailored messaging automatically to each distinct buyer persona. Work your way up to this summit by planning how to capture prospect data in a consistent manner across channels and devices.

Your journey toward creating a satisfying digital experience for your customers will be one of the most rewarding experiences you have in your career. We can help you make it a success. If you would like to learn more about how to get started, email BDX today or call us 1-866-651-8866.

Just a few years ago, the nation’s largest homebuilders pioneered the use of online home tours for our industry. 3D modeling was a quantum leap from traditional photos and video because it enabled home buyers to immerse themselves in a realistic experience.

Now we’re taking tours to the next level with 3D Matterport Tours. Our 3D cameras digitally recreate properties and transform them into virtual environments. Now, inviting online buyers to virtually explore homes can fit within any budget.

For builders, interactive model home tours are just the tip of the iceberg. Virtual Reality 3D Matterport tours engage buyers and capture their imaginations through every step of the home buying experience. [Tweet This]This technology maximizes the effectiveness of marketing dollars and expedites the sales process. Here are a few ways builders can use these tours in their business:

Model Home Tours

Your model may be in Dallas and your buyer may be in New Jersey. Yet she can enjoy a self-directed virtual tour, using a mouse to walk into every room and interact with the spaces. She can experience the overall design concept, flow, room dimensions, and even the quality of construction, all as if she were there. She can also use the dollhouse view to see the whole property at once or the floorplan view for a top-down perspective.

You can also provide buyers the benefits of a guided tour by using Mattertag™ Posts. These visual callouts provide detailed information about the features and finishes, making the tour an even more effective online sales tool. Mattertag Posts are informative without interrupting, and they are proven to drive longer engagement and more return visits.

Because VR tours are available to so many more potential buyers than model homes, the number of showings is typically multiplied.

Finished Homes: Capture Every Plan

A model can only present one of the infinite possible finished home designs. 3D Matterport Tours enable you to serve buyers with entirely different visions about flooring, elevations, finishes, and fixtures than what one model can show. Now the homes you build for customers become virtual models, demonstrating a wide range of available looks and features. By showcasing the full range of your building capabilities, you’re no longer limited to the imaginations of your buyers as they tour one possible iteration of a model.

Custom Home Showcase

For custom home builders, a portfolio of work is critical for referrals and building your client base. These luxurious showcases of workmanship, fine quality materials, and state-of-the-art technology are your strongest untapped sales asset. 3D tours make it possible for your prospects to tour them and to appreciate your capabilities as a builder, no matter what level of home they desire. Custom home tours add cachet to your brand, just as the BMW 7 Series makes every model below it more attractive. Showcasing custom homes also seduces homebuyers into falling in love with more elaborate and expensive options for their finish-outs.

Design Center Tours

Virtual tours have multiple applications in the marketing and homebuilding processes. Why not use a 3D Matterport Tour to allow buyers to tour your design center? During the buying process, enabling people to explore their choices in colors, textures, and materials for flooring, fixtures, and other options is a richer experience than comparing bulleted lists. In marketing, the term “theater of the mind” applies, as buyers respond emotionally to an experience more readily than they respond intellectually to plain information.  For that reason, this marketing “sizzle” will soon be a part of every serious homebuilder’s arsenal.

Pre-Drywall Blueprints

Buyers are wowed by Matterport’s immersive 3D experiences, but you should also consider using Matterport tours during the construction process to document the wiring, plumbing, and other interior elements before drywall is in place. This investment can be a valuable resource down the line and save time and money by painting a clear picture of what is “behind the walls”.

We’re reaching a technology tipping point in the marketing of our homes. 2D photos and virtual tours tell buyers what a property looks like. 3D Matterport Tours from BDX empower builders to show them what it feels like. By virtually immersing your buyers in their future homes, you can prove that you understand what it takes to earn their business in the 21st century. For more information and to get started with your 3D tour, email us today.

The company was recently ranked seventh on The Austin Business Journal’s list of the healthiest Austin-area mid-sized companies.

Austin, TX – April 28, 2016 – The Builder Homesite, Inc (BHI) team was recently honored at an awards breakfast in downtown Austin for being one of the city’s healthiest employers. The Healthiest Employers awards are given annually in several major cities by Healthiest Employers, an Indianapolis-based firm. The awards recognize organizations committed to creating a healthy workplace.

The awards event kicked off with a fitness walk around Lady Bird Lake, followed by a healthy breakfast with opening remarks from Dave Kirchoff, CEO of Snap Kitchen. Heather Ladage, publisher of the Austin Business Journal (ABJ) also addressed the audience of 250 attendees. The awards were presented by Greg Barr, ABJ managing editor.

“All of us at Builder Homesite, Inc. are honored to be recognized as one of the Healthiest Employers in Central Texas,” said Tim Costello, Chairman and CEO of BHI. “For 16 years, our company culture has always emphasized fitness, healthy eating and wellness. We even built out a former health club as our company’s headquarters to allow our employees access to extensive workout facilities and a full array of health and fitness classes.”

In recognizing BHI’s wellness programs, the judges said that Builder Homesite’s employees “stay healthy with yoga, cycling and bootcamp-style classes; a company-hosted health fair each year; and a fitness facility with a basketball court, rock wall, sauna and more.”

The Healthiest Employer awards program utilizes an online assessment to measure wellness programming in six categories: Leadership Commitment; Foundational Components; Strategic Planning; Communication and Marketing; Programming and Interventions; and Reporting and Analysis.

In keeping with BHI’s longstanding commitment to wellness, 2016 will also mark the third year that Builder Homesite has hosted more than 70 bicyclists from The University of Texas on the eve of their annual Texas 4000 Atlas Ride to raise money for cancer research and education.

“BHI has long been home to a group of avid cyclists,” said Meghan Hill, BHI’s Director of Human Resources. “Our founders, and many of our employees, have been involved in biking for many years and we’re proud to continue our tradition of hosting the riders in The Texas 4000 the night before their 70 day, 4,000 mile ride from Austin to Alaska.”

About BHI

Headquartered in Austin, Texas, BHI was founded with the mission to bring homebuilding industry leaders together to develop world class technology solutions. BHI was formed in 2000 as a consortium of 29 of the nation’s largest homebuilders. Our flagship product is NewHomeSource.com, a consumer website featuring the Internet’s most comprehensive selection of new homes.

Since its founding, BHI has expanded to provide digital solutions across a range of industries through its two companies:  Builders Digital Experience (BDX) is a leading provider of digital marketing and sales solutions for the building industry and EX² Solutions helps businesses in every industry tackle critical opportunities with world-class technology. For more information visit www.builderhomesite.com.

Contact Information:

Builder Homesite, Inc.

Eleanor Bowman

512-413-5278

ebowman@builderhomesite.com

The recently overhauled New Home Source Professional is teeming with goodness. The leading new home website for real estate agents is now clean, modern, and full of tools to help you advertise your newly constructed homes, communicate with agents, and continue to grow your business.

Haven’t seen it yet? Here are the features that make your new homes even more attractive to agents and their buyers:

Multiple search options. Your communities are now displayed in multiple search formats for agents, including: list, map or photo view, with quick previews. Adding a map search is a feature that agents specifically requested and the enhanced photo view allows your high resolution renderings to be seen clearly and more prominently.

Agents can save listings, save searches, and generate reports. With the new search tools, agents are able to better keep track of your properties to show their clients as well as print off reports of your communities to help potential buyers make the right decision.

Custom Agent Sites. Communication with agents has never been easier! Agents now can now have their own microsite showcasing all of the new home communities in their areas. So your homes get more exposure and agents are able to better communicate with clients and educate them about your communities.

Tracking client activity. Being able to track clients on the site will allow for more effective communication to further them through their home buying journey. You will be able to see how often your properties are being viewed and what features are attracting the most attention. This way you will know what content is best for each market.

Ready to check it out? Click here.