Entering (and winning!) residential building awards is a great way to get recognition for your work — as well as elevate your business profile, prove credibility and impress potential customers and employees.
Entering the HIA Professional Builder Awards or the MBA National Excellence Awards? You can cover many of the technology, customer service and satisfaction criteria just by using Constructive, citing built-in features to reflect the brilliance of your customer experience.
We asked our in-house residential building experts for their best advice on why you should enter awards and some practical tips on preparing an award-winning entry.
Five benefits of entering building awards
1. Attracting clients
Award-winning builders are seen as more trustworthy and reputable as potential clients admire a company that’s been independently reviewed and awarded for excelling.
2. Marketing opportunities and brand awareness
Awards shine a positive spotlight on your business on the awards night; however in the months and years following you can extend the value of your award win by displaying your award on your website and other marketing materials.
A photo of your team with a hard-earned building award looks impressive on social media and validates your quality to potential clients.
“Brand awareness includes industry experts who make up judging panels. Even finalists are mentioned at awards which increases awareness of your brand and what you’re bringing to the marketplace,” says Emma Lord, Client Success Manager.
3. Recruitment and increasing staff morale
Awards can expand your community and give you the opportunity to connect with talented people in the building industry. Taking the time to document the positives in your company’s work will boost morale and showcase your workplace as a successful place to work.
“People want to work for successful companies,” says Emma. “It instils a sense of purpose and pride for existing employees and can help to attract exceptional recruits.”
4. Communicating brand values
Award entries are a valuable way to define and validate what your building company stands for.
“Entering awards is a good opportunity for builders to put their money where their mouth is. It’s one thing to say your values are around customer experience, quality of home and sustainable design, but awards give Australian builders a way to showcase how they believe they’re achieving these. It’s also good bragging rights if you win!” says Constructive BDM, Steph Schumer.
5. Garnering feedback
“The judging process will provide valuable feedback for your company. It’s not very often you’re able to get non-bias opinions comparing your design, quality and service to your competitors,” says Emma.
“Comments from industry-respected judges can be used in testimonials, too.”
Show, don’t tell
One of the most important aspects of your award entry is the quantification of your results. A winning entry will show proof of claims made. Don’t just say you “keep clients informed” or “exceed communication expectations”; give facts and figures to show how you achieve this consistently.
“Communication is key for clients, you need to keep them informed every step of the way; updating them on the progress of their home — from sales all the way to maintenance. You should detail in your award application how you provide them useful information and regular photos through the Portal and explain how this translates to efficiencies, like minimising incoming calls to staff and lessening the workload for builders,” advises Lizzie Mooney, Client Success Manager.
For instance, to demonstrate each client receives the same baseline of consistent communication on their build, you could write about your Portal progress milestones and automated email communication — both during administration, (eg, fortnightly) and then more frequently, (eg, weekly) during construction.
“Exceeding customer expectations is really about going above and beyond and showing that you’re sticking to a best-practice strategy of uploading at least one photo per job per week and drip-feeding communications to ensure consistent, minimum touchpoints with all clients throughout their journeys. Any additional pro-active phone calls or updates over and above these is the icing on the cake!” says Steph.
Clarity of communications
Detailing your strategy and operations around communication and response times, transparency around what to expect and timeframes in both pre-construction and construction are important points to address in your application.
You can also describe how internal continuity regarding client communications is handled through the Portal.
“There’s transparency between office staff and on-site staff as the progress updates and communications are online within the Portal, never lost in translation between calls and emails. And if a staff member goes on annual leave or is away sick, you’re not digging through emails to find out what was last communicated — it’s all right there in their Portal,” says Emma.
“Excellent customer experience comes about from turning to your customers, rather than away from them. There are a lot of moving parts to get a home fully built which can be extremely overwhelming and daunting for someone unfamiliar with the process,” says Steph.
“Demonstrate that you know which information is required, at which stage, to show you’re ensuring clients are fully aware of the processes involved and how things will unfold — but without overwhelming people with too much information at once.”
Pro-active client education and reassurance
“One thing that often causes clients to feel unsettled is that they don’t understand the full process. The Portal lets them look ahead at what is to come and have a greater understanding of where they are in the overall journey,” says Emma.
“It’s all about educating clients and providing them with a tool to look through in their own time when it suits them. It’s being proactive about providing answers before they ask; empowering them with information to make them feel confident about what’s to come.”
“Progress Milestones are there to educate your clients on all stages of the build. You can explain how you link these with automated Progress Emails and proactively provide material that helps them understand exactly what’s happening at each stage,” says Lizzie.
Feedback, surveys and NPS
“Asking clients for feedback through surveys and Net Promoter Score (NPS) is essential to provide an exceptional customer experience, and is an important point to cover,” says Lizzie.
“You can write about how client satisfaction is measured through Customer Surveys in the Portal and NPS questions. Detail the various stages you send surveys throughout the lifetime of your relationship with a client, and what you do with the scores,” advises Steph.
Constructive features that boost your award application
Customer Portal Photos “Clients can share photos in their portal directly to social media with your company name in the hashtags so you increase your reach,” says Lizzie.
Customer Portal Messages “The functionality to send messages directly through the Portal means it’s convenient for clients — they don’t need to open up their email and everything can be done from the one platform.”
Customer Portal Progress Milestones and Documentation “The Portal provides clients information on their own terms. Instead of searching back and forth through lots of emails, folders and text messages, all their milestones, documentation and photos are all located in one place, accessible 24/7 online,” says Steph.
Automated, Milestone-Triggered Surveys You can demonstrate how you measure the loyalty and intention of your customers via asking an NPS question through surveys, (and integrated reminders), through your Customer Portal. While NPS is a measure of customer experience, it’s important to explain what you do with these scores to drive improvements in key areas.
3D Selections “If you have Constructive 3D, under technology you might like to talk about how their unique home design can be viewed interactively, giving them time to visualise their colour choices, see their home come to life and have them be pre-prepared for their selections appointment. It also assists with setting expectations around the end product and ensures happier clients in the long-run.”
Constructive Integrations “Do you integrate Constructive with an internal workflow management system? Consider writing about how you ensure clients are updated seamlessly with one source of truth and minimal double-handling for your internal staff.”
Online Selections “Online Selections allows clients to view their available inclusions and upgrades ahead of their selections meeting. This eliminates any confusion on what’s included,” says Emma.
“Clients have their Selections complete with images (and 3D) to look back on. Building a house can take time and it’s common for a client to forget what they’ve chosen. With Constructive, you’re being proactive, they don’t have to ask and wait for an answer.”
Pricing and Upgrades “The pricing feature should also be mentioned as it demonstrates being transparent. There’s complete clarity on how much an upgrade will cost giving clients peace of mind, not to mention reducing the time spent in the Selections meeting.”
“Constructive is a complement to your customer service strategy — it isn’t there to replace or take away from the personable approach you have with clients. You can talk about the features you use in your application and show how they level-up your customer experience and satisfaction,” says Lizzie.
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