The Proven Method to Improve Customer Service

Giving your customers the proper resources can generate more sales

By Steven Fielding

How is your customer service? For home building professionals, customer service often gets neglected in favor of acquiring new business or improving the quality of services. But what if I told you that improving your customer service could also help you increase your website traffic and subsequently increase your leads and sales? Well, here’s how to do it.

Whether you focus on multi-family or masterplanned communities, the first step to improving your customer service and getting more website traffic is to think of all the frequently asked questions you get when it comes to customer service. Here are a few examples of questions: Do you offer a warranty on your work? How do you handle change orders? Who will be in my home during the project? Are there any fees or hidden costs I should be aware of?

Whether you focus on multi-family or masterplanned communities, the first step to improving your customer service and getting more website traffic is to think of all the frequently asked questions you get when it comes to customer service.”

Come up with as many frequently asked questions as you can. Topics to pull from include: what services you offer, where you work, how long projects take, how much will it cost, who do they meet with, what your process looks like, why they should work with you, etc. Your questions should, of course, cover post-construction topics, but customer service starts before someone even becomes a customer. Strive to provide the best service possible at every stage of the buyer’s journey.

This brings us to the next step to improving your customer service and getting more website traffic — answer your frequently asked questions starting with the questions you get asked most often first. Make sure your answers are generic enough to apply to most people but specific enough to satisfy the questioner.

For example, take this question: “How long will my project take?” A potential answer might be: “Project length varies. Larger projects take longer, and smaller projects can be completed quickly.” Obviously, this is a bad answer. It doesn’t give me any real idea on how long it will take to complete my project.

Instead, this answer would serve you better: “Our projects, on average, take between 6-12 months. Our least complex projects take 4-6 months, and our most complex take upwards up to 1 ½ years. Click here to see time estimates for each stage of the process, and remember, factors like complexity, changes, and budget influence project completion.” This answer gives specific numbers, a next step to learn more (time estimates by stage), and a disclaimer that it’s not a one size fits all answer (factors that influence the timeline).

Once you write answers that satisfy, you’re ready to publish your frequently asked questions. This is the step where you improve your customer service, save countless hours of time, and get more website traffic all at once!

Publish your frequently asked questions on your website either as an FAQ page with all your questions or as individual blog posts or pages. For most short Q&As, an FAQ page will be sufficient.

You’ve done it and now they have been published. But what happens next? Now, direct existing or potential customers asking these questions to this new source of information. You may find they will naturally gravitate to your FAQ first before ever contacting you directly. In addition, many people type searches similar to your frequently asked questions directly into search engines. Since you’re the one answering these questions online, your chances of ranking in the search engine results just went way way up!

In conclusion, predict your existing and potential customers’ most common questions. Create answers that truly help them. Publish your FAQ publically. Begin receiving traffic from people searching for answers to their burning questions, and save massive amounts of time by sending your audience to your FAQ vs. having to answer every question individually every single time.

Your best answers written once will answer countless similar questions over the lifetime of your business.

Steven Fielding is a Marketing Director at Builder Funnel.