Aside from the obvious answer, which is because the New Homes Quality Code requires you to, the analogy I would use for offering every customer a Home Demonstration is that of servicing your car. Will it still run without a service? Probably. Will it run as smoothly? NO. Could there be a bigger problem later because it hasn’t been serviced? Quite likely.
So, a service would make sense – and so does a Home Demonstration. In simple terms, it is designed to demonstrate all the fitted appliances, and the systems (heating, hot water, ventilation).
You might think that is overkill – how difficult can it be to set the heating programmer? Well in fairness, for some quite difficult and for others, it’s simply out of the question. Systems on modern houses are quite high tech and don’t forget, with older purchasers, many have just left a home where the only technology they knew was clock work and 40-50 years old.
Back to analogies. You have just purchased a brand-new BMW. Will the car showroom just hand you the keys, pat you on the back and say, goodbye. NOPE! They have a well-rehearsed programme to sit with you in the car and talk you through all the controls and systems. Cars can be quite complicated – as can homes. BMW wouldn’t think of taking £50K of you and just handing over the keys. So why would a developer take £350K of a customer and just hand over the keys?
But a Home Demonstration is about much more than just demonstrating things. It’s an early opportunity to get to know your new customer, and here is the advantage this provides; you can explain how your after care operates. In doing this you can set some realistic expectations – can the customer expect you as developer to do absolutely anything that they may ask of you? NO. That would be unreasonable, however here is the moment to tell them what you will do. And tell them why there are certain things that they must do for themselves e.g., home maintenance and repairs.
Home Demonstrations are a great way to mark the point where a customer ceases to have a relationship with the sales agent (almost certainly the person they have had most to do with so far) and begins to have a new relationship with the aftercare team.
Don’t confuse a Home Demonstration with handing over the keys and reading the meters on the day of legal completion, it’s not the same thing, but if it makes life easier, they can be combined into the same event.
After Build offer a fixed-price Home Demonstration that ticks all of these boxes. Want to know more – speak to Mark Fawcitt (Director of Customer Development) on: 07342 037810 (markf@afterbuild.com).