Managing Customer Expectations – Homeowners Manual

Did you ever receive a customer complaint and take it to your staff only to get the response from your employee, "Well what did they expect?"  

Managing your customer's expectations will lead to happy customers and more referrals. The key here is manage not manipulate.  It starts with your advertising. Are you promising something you cannot deliver? You have likely heard the adage "under promise and over perform." The problem with this theory is that continued over performance will raise expectations even if you promise less.  Promise what you can do then do it.

Our housing business created a Homeowners Manual that told the customer what to expect from signing the contract to warranty.  To develop our Homeowners Manuals we used a template written by Carol Smith and distributed through the National Association of Home Builders. The template is extremely helpful but needs to be reviewed thoroughly and adjusted to your geographic area and construction methods. You also need to prepare the instructions on the various procedures such as closing to your area. We found that more information we included the better. We even prepared a page with names and phone numbers for the homeowner to contact for establishing utilities, garbage pickup, cable TV and water service. We also included information on the municipality, Park District, school districts and emergency numbers.

The maintenance portion of the manual includes maintenance instruction on everything from vacuuming the floor to instructions on changing the furnace filter. At the end of each section the standards for the work item and warranty for the item is listed. The standards were practical and achievable. All our employees and trade contractors were required to have copies of the Manual available so they knew the standards we had contracted to meet.

Also included was a detailed description of closing procedures. We included a page of contacts the new home owner would need such as phone numbers and address of municipality, utilities, cable TV, garbage removal, emergency numbers and recreational facilities.

We would give the full Homeowners Manual to the home buyers when they signed a contract. We had them sign a receipt. The receipt included a clause that if they found anything in the manual with which they disagreed they could cancel the contract within forty eight hours.  If they did not cancel they were tied into the standards and policies in the manual. We never had anyone cancel their contract. We had happier customers and therefore happier employees and trade contractors.

The template for the Home Owner's Manual can be purchased HERE. You can also email me and I will send you a copy of the table of contents from our Manual.

Original Content copyright 2011 Thomas Robinson