A digital engagement platform is an important part of a customer-centric culture. However, you need to be aware of the pros and cons of engaging a developer to build your own, bespoke Customer Portal versus buying an industry-proven, Software as a Service (SaaS) solution like Constructive.
Build versus buy — which is better for home builders?
In this article, we’ll explore some considerations in building a client portal solution yourself compared to the built-in features of Constructive’s Customer Portal.
While there are many factors you should evaluate for your Customer Portal, here are four of the most important to thoroughly review:
1 Financial: Builder Customer Portal Costs
Building a custom Client Portal in-house, or via a contracted development team, seems feasible with enough human power and time. However, doing so can bring many unforeseen costs that can catch you out when the project gets underway.
Constructive CEO, James Salt, comes from a background in both the construction industry and in IT management for home builders, software and custom development so understands the unique challenges builders face when appraising the opportunities and risks of creating their own customer Portal.
“Software is an investment like any other business expense and needs thorough consideration in regards to future projections. While it can seem building your own Customer Portal is a money-saving opportunity since you’re not paying any ongoing user costs or initial set-up fees, it’s not until you add up the financial outlay of continued technical maintenance, security and support that the snowball of ongoing costs starts to gather (expensive) weight,” says James.
Developing software you’re confident can securely handle customer data, personalised engagement, email notifications, automation and document/image storage, plus maintaining servers that are industry-grade in infrastructure are specialist-level responsibilities that are notoriously difficult to estimate accurately, even for seasoned industry professionals.
It’s why Constructive prioritised the Customer Portal as a core product offering, explains James: “With a ready-built and maintained Portal with a simplified pay-per-job cost structure for services used, builders can confidently define, model and forecast their costs up-front with no nasty, costly surprises.”
2 Opportunity cost: Time to market and time to reach return on investment
Building your own Customer Portal, depending on the complexity of features, might take months, or even years, and could reach hundreds of thousands of dollars before you even launch to customers.
Consider the benefits you can reap from engaging clients with a Portal sooner rather than later with implementation guidance from a team of building industry expert Client Success Managers:
- Increase client experience and satisfaction as they self-serve build progress updates, photos, documents and more, step by step in an intuitive format
- Eliminate unnecessary calls and emails to your team
- Educate clients about their build and upcoming progress steps with baked-in educational content and reminders
- Promote transparency and improve your customer experience reputation
- Create an automated feedback loop through integrated surveys to find new content to improve and upkeep your Customer Portal
- Consistently deliver an industry-leading, excellent customer experience for the whole building journey: from pre-construction through selections all the way to maintenance
- Monitor and track data to drive decisions with confidence and efficiency
With a done-for-you Client Portal where you pay per job, you’ll almost immediately reach a return on investment; whereas a custom solution might take several years to recoup the costs.
3 Technical debt
‘Starting from scratch’ with a self-built Customer Portal equates to a long-term, serious technical commitment to your platform.
Maintenance: Rapidly changing technologies, storage, infrastructure, browsers, consumer expectations and security protocols all link to this fact: software must constantly be updated, rigorously tested and maintained – and that means forever! Letting a third-party, builder platform software engineering team maintain the system to a professional level for you takes away this never-ending stress and expense — and gives you peace of mind your clients’ data is safe and secure while they enjoy an always up-to-date user experience.
Support: Constant support requests are part and parcel of running your own Portal platform. You’ll need to budget resources dedicated to answering queries, assisting staff and customers and solving technical problems on the fly; whereas when you buy into a proven solution you can rely on comprehensive support forum documentation and a dedicated team, ready and eager to help you with any issue or question.
Integration: Setting up integration routes with existing software can be a costly exercise and involves a lot of back and forth to achieve a smooth integration. It’s cheaper, quicker and safer to go with an existing platform like Constructive that has proven experience and relationships with software you already use, like OnSite Companion, ClickHome, Business Craft, Framework, Truth Engine, Keystone, Dynamics 365, Data Build, Constructor, Sugar CRM, Survey Monkey and more.
Continual improvement: Reflect on how you will research, design, code, test and roll out new features and improvements. You’ll want some serious experts who are available when you need them. Creating a Customer Portal means you’ll need to engage a specialist building-industry product researcher, a software project manager, a user interface (UI) designer, a user experience (UX) designer, full-stack engineers, a quality assurance tester and training staff. If they’re new to your business, the building industry and/or your particular Portal, you’ll also be paying — in cost and time — for them to get up to speed on your setup, goals, tech stack and deliverables.
A software company that offers a builder client Portal has all these people in-house, already experienced in both the product and the house building industry, working on the same software every day.
4 Customisation
Software is a living product and you’ll never be ‘done‘ — you’ll always want to add more functionality or customise certain parts.
Going back to a software developer to make changes can be costly and time-consuming and you’ll need to juggle non-technical stakeholders’ expectations and ideas, which doesn’t always equate to a great digital experience for your clients. The reality is, a Customer Portal to service clients building their new homes needs an equal balance of deep experience in both the building industry and software development.
Client Success Manager, Lizzie Mooney, advises: “If you choose Portal software, like Constructive, it’s white-labelled and customisable and gives you an amazing amount of flexibility. You’ll work with a dedicated Client Success Manager, too. Our whole CSM team has both building industry and product experience so they’ll understand what you need and can give you ideas and feedback on how to customise Constructive to work best for you.”
With an existing, third-party solution, you’ll also gain the benefit of multiple clients constantly submitting feedback and ideas that ultimately make the product better, with no cost or effort on your behalf. Chances are, there are features you haven’t even imagined yet that are already baked into the product or being developed!
Constructive Customer Portal
Digital Customer Experience in home building cannot be ignored. Clients expect a sophisticated, personalised Client Portal with access 24/7.
Leverage industry-proven, existing Customer Portal technology with Constructive.
