Perth home builder, La Vida Homes are continually seeking to improve their customer experience and refine the daily operations to alleviate unnecessary workload for staff. La Vida Homes pride itself as socially conscious, customer-centric, changemakers that build remarkable homes. So how did La Vida maximise Constructive Software’s Customer Portal To Do’s tasks to meet these objectives? Siobhán Dunkley, WA Marketing Manager, and Jasmin Pannell, Marketing and Admin Assistant share their tactics.:
Perth house and land packages builder La Vida Homes are continually seeking to improve their customer experience and refine the daily operations to alleviate unnecessary workload for staff. La Vida Homes pride itself as socially conscious, customer-centric, changemakers that build remarkable homes. So how did La Vida maximise Constructive Software’s Customer Portal To Do’s tasks to meet these objectives? Siobhán Dunkley, WA Marketing Manager, and Jasmin Pannell, Marketing and Admin Assistant share their tactics.
What is an important consideration when choosing a customer experience software provider in the residential home building industry?:
“As one of the largest residential home builders in Australia, we pride ourselves on delivering the best customer experience possible, a ‘story-worthy experience’. We selected the best Australian company that aligned in our values and goals to be our software tool in helping us to deliver this experience to our customers, along with a remarkable home. Constructive Software is La Vida’s residential builder customer experience software of choice.”
How did La Vida Homes improve on the customer experience using Constructive Software’s To Do tasks feature?:
“La Vida has used the Customer Portal for years, and we enjoy the development of new free features added to our existing programs, one of them being the ‘To Do’s‘. The reality of the building process is that customers need to take specific actions at certain times. Our administrative team can experience an overwhelming workload when notifying, reminding, and chasing clients to take actions particularly when every client is at a different stage in their building journey.” Jasmin adds. “The ‘To Do’ tasks educate and empower the clients to take actions but framed in a fun and interactive way which is in alignment with our brand.” says Siobhán.
How do ‘To Do’ automated tasks and emails work?
The ‘To Do’ tasks consist of both automatic task notices that appear in the customer portal dashboard, and a series of emails which are all set up to automatically be sent to clients at specific stages through their building journey. e.g. In the Finance stage the builder assigns specific tasks to be sent to the client such as send proof of funds. This will be seen by the client in the customer portal dashboard, and/or a notification email.
Once the client has taken action like sending the proof, the software will ask the customer to upload documents or photos for evidence, and then mark the task as completed through the Customer Portal. If the client has not completed the task, the next task notice in the series will be automatically sent to them at e.g. 3 days later a reminder notice in the customer portal, and an email to provide proof of funds. Once the client completes the task and marks it as completed, the builder’s administrative team will receive a notification to check the task e.g. Finance confirms funds received, and then mark the task as completed.
The client will then automatically progress to the next task in the series, and the builder can decide to couple it with the auto-emails or not. e.g. book showroom visit or make Online Selections.
“The automation in this customer experiences keeps everyone on track and in total clarity. We have set up 40 automated tasks prompting clients to take actions from steps that are finance focused, to reminders near handover like ordering bins to be delivered by council. Some include the auto-emails to help with reminders, some are tasks that notify our clients in their login dashboard.”
More examples of automated To Do Tasks (notices in the customer portal, and/or auto-email reminders):
Finance:
Flag when to start finance approval, improving respect for the client’s status and personal comfort.
Notice of pending invoices to action, preventing service delays.
Preselection:
Steps to take to prepare for colour appointments, speeding up decision making in the comfort of their own home.
Setup an Instagram account to share the positive building experience.
Handover:
Flag move-in ready steps to leverage the clients joy when taking occupancy, i.e. organise a removalist, ordering bins, redirecting mail to new address, setting up Wi-Fi provider etc.
Maintenance:
Notifications of when to action maintenance to extend the quality of the home i.e. cleaning gutters to avoid roof leaks.
In-House reporting:
Monitor your clients progress throughout the build with embedded reporting functionality.
How did your customers react to getting emails of the tasks requiring action?
“Our clients chose La Vida due to our transparency, excellent communication and remarkable builds. Constructive Software’s Customer Portal helps us deliver this promise. The clients prefer to get the bite-sized information at the right stages and not be overwhelmed by all the actions they need to take at once in prestart. In the past, clients would require clarity about when to do what which means a lot of phone calls and system checks for status of their build. But now clients know exactly where they are in the building process, and the To Do tasks keep them on track with total clarity resulting in the tasks getting done sooner so that the build can progress. At La Vida we focus on building the experience our clients customers want and the To Do tasks help us do this.” concludes Siobhán Dunkley, WA Marketing Manager, La Vida Homes.
In today’s fast-paced residential home construction industry, finding ways to simplify processes while improving service is invaluable. La Vida Homes successful rollout of their To Do tasks and emails proves that utilising digital solutions can deliver exactly that – creating happier clients, happier staff, and more efficient operations.
Let us show you how the Customer Portal To Do tasks can help free up your team, save time, and improve customer experience.
