Since 1978, leading builder Allworth Homes is recognised in the Australian market for quality and efficiency. Financial Controller, Julie Ruan, is continually refining processes to save costs, improve cash flow and make the entire building journey customer friendly.
Julie determined Allworth Homes needed an easy-to-use, automated platform that would scale up build progress communications and reduce incoming inquiries, without burdening already busy office staff with more work. Constructive’s Customer Portal proved to be the perfect fit.
Building trust through transparency
Customers are reassured of progress regularly by viewing the photos area of the Portal, especially helpful for those who aren’t always able to visit the site. The visibility has also proven helpful for cash flow.
“Many of our clients live some distance from their building site,” says Julie. “It’s so reassuring for them to visit their Customer Portal. “
“We receive a progress payment once the home’s slab has been laid,” explains Julie. “In the old days, we would have had to wait for several days to post evidence to our customer’s address, leading to frustration and delays in payment.”
“Now, once the slab pour is complete, the site manager takes a photo, uploads it to the Portal and presses a button in our back-end system to say it was successful. With this information, our integration automatically updates the Portal and notifies the customer. They can visit their Portal and see photo evidence immediately.”
Fewer phone calls and emails
Visibility is baked into the entire build journey with Constructive. Allworth Homes have a Progress template — customised to their unique workflow and terminology — that includes the typical steps and milestones for a build, anticipating questions and providing educational content around the construction process in simple terms for clients.
Clients can see in context where they are at in the process at any time, and from any device, without calling or emailing the office. Allworth Homes deliver relevant details throughout the project in a proactive way, boosting customer experience.
“Customers used to call up constantly,” says Julie. “Asking: What’s going to happen next? Can I have a copy of my contract?”
“The Online Portal has photos, reports and all the documents and information our customers need. With Constructive, we get fewer phone calls and emails as the information they need is available at their fingertips!”
Allworth Homes’ customer experience success is reflected in Constructive’s online engagement KPI benchmarking. Allworth are regularly in the top three positions for client visits, document uploads and registration rate, and in the top five positions for notifications and photos per job.
Automation through integration
Allworth Homes smoothly integrated Constructive with their existing BusinessCraft system to avoid double-handling of data and seamlessly transfer data between the two systems.
One source of truth
Allworth Homes customers enjoy seeing real-time updates about their home’s progress with everything in one location, updating automatically as Allworth’s internal systems update.
“Customers love it!” says Julie. “It gives them an album of daily progress, plus photos, reports and all the documents they need.”
Ready to boost customer experience and reduce incoming emails and calls?
Try Constructive.
