Educate your buyers. Don’t leave it up to new home owners to work out what they need to do with their new home and how to look after it.
A new home is constructed from many different materials and the construction methods used generally rely on science to perform the function for which the method was used.
New homeowners are not material scientists nor are they builders, so you should not assume that the homeowner understands how to maintain and operate their home.
Educating your homeowners can help them achieve longer and greater enjoyment from their home as well as preventing unnecessary calls for maintenance work to be carried out.
Just as you receive an owner’s manual with each new car or vehicle you buy, providing a Home Owner’s Manual or the equivalent is the best way to keep your customers informed and help them gain the best from their new home. You would not service and maintain your vehicle so why would you not maintain your new home to maintain its value and to avoid costly replacement work ahead of the life cycle of the materials in the home.
A New Home Owner’s Manual can be in a hard copy printed form, although this is hard to keep up to date, as a ‘soft copy’ on a memory stick and included in the handover kit or available to customers on your website within a customer portal. The latter method is the easiest and most affordable way to distribute the information in a consistent and easily accessible format.
Most manufacturers provide service and warranty information on their websites that they update regularly so it makes sense to leverage this information in your online information. Be careful about pushing your customers off to the manufacturers without considering how you have used their material and ensure your use is consistent with the manufacturer’s otherwise there will be potential conflict and inconsistency if a dispute or defect occurs.
Also, it is a good idea to keep copies of the manufacturer’s information on their website if you are using a new material. I am aware of one situation where a builder installed a product according to the information on a manufacturer’s website only to find the information had changed when a dispute arose. Fortunately, the builder had taken screenshots of the website at the time he researched the product and was able to show the information had been changed in favour of the manufacturer.
Unlike cars, homes are affected by the seasons and depending on where the home is built will determine how much effect the seasons will have on the materials and function of the new home.
A good way is to break down a maintenance schedule into annual, six monthly, quarterly and monthly tasks and align these to the seasons – Summer, Autumn, Winter and Spring.
Tasks like the annual termite inspection or smoke alarm battery checks obviously fall under the annual list whereas checking gutters can fall into Spring and Autumn (I.e. before and after the storm season in Australia).
Think about the items you as a builder will check before handover such as the connections to the traps under basins and sinks (of course you do that, don’t you) say every six months so that leaks are prevented before major damage occurs to the cabinets below.
One item that is usually overlooked is the replacement of flexible hoses to the any taps which are usually guaranteed for only five years. Most builders have to carry the warranty on a new home for up to six years and six months so if you as the builder haven’t advised the home owner about this, then the owner of the home could quite confidently hold you, the builder responsible for the replacement and damage if it breaks down before the end of the warranty period.
Break down the setout of the manual into the seasonal, periodic and specific inspections required and then focus on the elements of materials of the home such as brickwork, drainage, roofing, windows, gutters, tiling, cabinets, benchtops, paint, timberwork and so on.
While it seems like a lot of work to pull all this information together, the cost and time will be more than worth it if you prevent one major issue with a client due to the education you have provided.
On the customer service side, it also helps create trust and peace of mind for your clients if they know the information is easily available if they need it.
The periodic inspection reminders are also a great way to keep in touch with your clients as part of the customer journey and to keep the education and trust fresh in their mind. In today’s hectic lifestyle, helping your clients with timely reminders is a great customer service initiative and can be easily automated with the email campaign software available today.
The 3C Mentor and Alpha Edge can help you develop a Home Owner’s Manual if you need help.
The whole purpose of The 3C Mentor and Alpha Edge is to help create really great businesses in the residential building industry and delivered by our unique ‘Four Pillars to Your Success’ – Business Coaching, Business Consulting, Business Resources and Construction Software.
For an overview of these four pillars go to Alpha Edge here. To find out more about the services Alpha Edge can provide go directly to Alpha Edge here and to access the many documents and resources you need as a residential builder, go to our Builder’s Business Resource Centre here. For more information on the construction software and how to ‘Be a Better Builder’, click here
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