We constantly hear how good customer service is the lifeblood of any business.  But what does that really mean?  Surely no business wants to ever offer bad customer service?

To Dale Alcock Homes, good customer service is centred around putting ourselves in your shoes and thinking, if we were in your situation, what would we want in terms of design? 

For us, it’s about offering a very personal service, such as a 24 hour call-out service for emergencies, whether that’s electrical, roofing, plumbing – or anything else for that matter requiring urgent attention.

Take the day in March this year when the now infamous storms shook – or rather pounded – Perth.  DAH received over 150 calls, starting from 4pm that afternoon, and continuing into the night on our after-hours service.   Aware that the storm was affecting more and more families, our service department went into overdrive and took advantage of any means available to contact people as quickly as possible. In some cases, our team members used their own personal mobile and all of our staff were at work at 6.00am the next day to help our customers throughout what was a difficult time.

For us, excellent customer service is also about offering each of our clients a dedicated client liaison officer who is there as a first point of contact throughout the building process.  If our clients have any questions or queries, they know they can contact their own liaison officer to find the answers.  Of course, our clients also know they can contact the General Manager directly if they have a particular burning issue.

DAH has developed a reputation for offering personal service similar to that of a boutique builder.  Certainly, we cap the number of homes we sell each month to maintain excellent level of service.

And throughout the building process we request that our clients undertake no less than four customer surveys, which enables us to gain quality feedback in the following areas:

• Homebuying Survey and Client lifestyle survey
• Selection Survey
• Handover Survey
• Service Warranty – after six months of living in the home

The results from these questionnaires are a key tool for DAH in identifying customer needs, meeting our own superior customer service standards and also making ongoing improvements to ensure our service is the best it can be.

To us, that’s what good customer service is all about.  Perhaps that’s why we’ve been recognised many times through industry awards for our service, attention to detail and our care throughout the building process.

What are your experiences of customer service in the building industry?  Do you have a story you’d like to share?  If you do, please drop us a comment – we’d love to hear from you.