Navigating Client Expectations as a Custom Home Builders
As a custom home builder, expectations for your work are already high. But in today’s climate, client experience is more important than ever!
There’s nothing worse than an irate customer blowing up your phone, or coming into work to find your inbox full of clients asking for (yet another) update on how the project’s going.
The good news is, you can prevent a lot of these conversations and provide a better client experience by setting expectations up front.
5 Strategies for Managing Client Expectations in Home Construction
Before we get started, there’s one important thing to remember.
Your clients don’t know what you know.
You spend day in and day out in your industry. But for your clients, this is something new. Even if they’ve built a home in the past or worked with a general contractor on a project, it is still not a part of their day-to-day. So they don’t know what to expect throughout the process.
Setting clear expectations is YOUR job as a contractor. And how well you do this can make or break your business.
Larger projects like high-end custom home builds feel like really high stakes to your clients — even if they have all the confidence in your capabilities and quality of the end product.
If you can go into a project remembering that customers don’t know anything except what you tell them, this can help you get a sense of what kind of information you need to communicate, and lead them through the entire project hand in hand.
Set yourself up for success with your intake
Most business owners in the industry know to start setting expectations at the beginning of a project, but clear client communication actually starts way before then!
Your website, emails, and phone calls all communicate information about how you work and what people can expect from you.
There are several strategies you can employ on your website to help out with this:
Outline the basics of your process in 3-4 short steps and put it on your homepage. It makes it easier for prospective clients to take action when they can see clearly defined steps.
Add a Frequently Asked Questions page to your website covering common questions you hear from current and past clients. (Visit my FREEBIES page for a thorough list of FAQs you can include on your own website!)
Personalize your initial inquiry emails with a video of you letting prospects of next steps. This is a great way to introduce yourself, welcome them to your business, and set expectations of what to expect moving forward.
By implementing these things, people can get a sense of who you are, how you operate, and what to expect before they even meet with you in person or book with you.
Make a project plan and review it with your clients
A building project can take several months to years, so having a clear project plan and timeline is crucial to provide your clients.
When a project is delayed, this dramatically affects your client’s life. Using scheduling software and project management tools can help with this. But from the get-go, make sure you sit down with your clients and set the stage for your time working together.
By creating a clear project plan, your customers get an idea of how things stand now, what they’ll be like when you’re finished, the stages the project includes, and how you plan on moving through those stages. Be sure to also include any information about pre-work (for instance, do you need clients to sign off on something before you start?) as well as project closeout.
Once you’ve got the plan laid out, review it with your customers and verbally walk them through it. Encourage them to ask any questions they have or voice any concerns that come up. It’s much better to answer them up front than have them come up during the middle of a project, so take your time with this, and go deep!
Talk to your customers about communication
Another thing to do is talk to your customers about communication before the beginning of any contracting or remodeling project.
Your clients will all have different expectations when it comes to how they communicate and how available they expect you to be, so it’s good to get that all in the open up front. Tell them what they can expect from you, and how you expect them to communicate with you.
For example, if you prefer people to call you with questions, say that. If you’re only available on email certain days of the week, tell them that up front. This will help you avoid any kind of situation where customers escalate communication with you just because they haven’t heard back from you on their timeline.
Check out what I include in my client proposals in regards to communication expectations →→→
Finally, make sure that everyone who works for you upholds those same standards of communication. You don’t want to get into a situation where a customer has one type of interaction with one person, and then a completely different interaction with someone else. It creates confusion and lack of trust in your company and/or services. Consistency matters here, so make sure everyone’s on the same page. (This includes the information on your website — make sure it’s aligned with the communication standards for the rest of your business.)
Talk about what could go wrong, and what the plan is when that happens
It might seem kind of weird to go looking for possible problems in a project, but no construction project ever goes 100% according to plan. The good news is you can prepare for this — and so can your clients.
Part of setting clear expectations is talking to your clients about potential obstacles and what you plan to do if those issues occur. This helps them understand that things are almost certainly going to change throughout the course of the project, but that you’ve already thought about these potential issues and you have a plan for if they happen.
This is a massive trust-builder and can give you a touchpoint to refer back to if something does go wrong and a client starts to panic.
Be honest and transparent
Above all, just tell the truth. There’s no point in trying to avoid a hard conversation, or telling clients something they want to hear. It’s always going to come out eventually, and the loss of trust that happens when it does just isn’t worth it. Respect your customers enough to be up front with them about what’s going on, and they’ll handle any setbacks or changes way better than if you try to slide things by them.
Ready to build a website that works as hard as you do?
I’ve helped dozens of businesses in construction increase their conversion rates and book more jobs with strategic websites on Squarespace. I’d love to serve you and help you achieve the same. Learn more about custom website design by booking a free 30-minute consultation today!
