Continuously improve customer experience

The moment you buy a house is a big life changing event. You are signing on for a new start, on a new location. The house you buy becomes your home. The foundation you always fall back on. It has to be and feel right. That's why AM wants to organize the process of getting an option on a building number until the delivery of the house as well as possible for the customer. An important tool for this is the Net Promoter Score, NPS. This is a score that measures how customers experience this process. Desiree van Dijk: “There are six crucial moments in this process. The first is the moment customers sign up for their preferred home and the assignment of an option on a building number. The second moment is the signing of the contracts.”

AM is responsible for these first two moments of the customer experience. In the following moments, residents mainly deal with AM's partners. For example, they visit Homestudios, an experience center where they make their choices about the rough construction. To build an extension or not, a dormer or not, the configuration of the kitchen. The last two crucial moments are the viewing moments at the construction site and the delivery. In these moments, the client deals with the construction company that builds the homes.

Desiree works closely with colleagues at Homestudio's and BAM Wonen to set up the customer experience in the best possible way. Measuring the NPS score is an important tool in this regard. It gives direction to the parts of the experience that can be improved. Desiree: “The key question in measuring NPS is: would you recommend us to friends and family? In doing so, we ask what grade they would give us and what the main reason for this grade is, the so-called root cause. This last question is an open question that gives us very valuable information. For example, if they indicate that their grade is so high because they received such good information from the broker, our sales managers let the brokers know that their story comes across well to the customer. Because we have a weekly report of our NPS measurements, we can respond directly to what customers are experiencing.”

Of course it's nice to have happy, satisfied customers, but it doesn't stop there. AM sees that improving customer service eventually leads to new customers. Desiree: “New construction has many advantages, but buying a new house is also quite a stressful step for people. There is a lot involved, it takes a long time before it is delivered and they really still have to create a home. If we make that process as pleasant as possible for them, they become ambassadors. They tell their friends and family how satisfied they are. That makes it easier to get new buyers excited about homes in one of our area developments.”

Thanks to the NPS measurements, Desiree and her colleagues discovered that the moment of contract signing could be better. “In the time of corona, we were forced to have contracts signed digitally. After corona, this was still happening. Through the NPS scores, we discovered that people like to actually experience that special moment of purchase physically. They want to make it a celebratory moment. So now the signing takes place at the broker again and they get a little treat to make it an extra special moment. In the scores, we see that customers are more positive about this.”

Not always can the customer's experience be influenced positively, Desiree explains. “One challenge is the moment when they choose the add-on options at Homestudios. The experience at the experience center really couldn't be more beautiful. Buyers there see examples of certain options on the spot and they receive excellent guidance in their choices from home consultants. Still, it remains a challenging moment, because choosing options involves major financial decisions and because they face time constraints. They can only submit their choice until a certain date. Because of this, we see that the NPS at this measuring moment can still be improved. So we are doing everything possible to offer customers the smoothest possible choice process. We are therefore investigating whether it is possible to allow customers to adjust their choices at a later date.”

A recent renewal of all websites and blogs about the areas, on the other hand, provided a boost in NPS scores from the first measuring moment. “The new websites have interactive floor plans, allowing even more detailed views of building numbers. Our customers have found this to be very positive. They can use these websites to better inform themselves when choosing their home.”

Desiree is primarily involved in measuring NPS scores, but she emphasizes that AM puts future residents first in all areas. “Through crowd sourcing, for example, we ask interested people about their needs and wishes for a particular area. We take this into account in our development plans. And also my colleagues from placemaking are always working on how we can make a new area as attractive as possible for our clients and involve them in the development.”