Putting customer service first
The Executive and Directors are committed to driving improvements in our customer satisfaction, placing this firmly at the top of our agenda. The results can be seen below in our customer survey scores for the year.
Understanding our customers
In January we commissioned an independent market research company to obtain feedback from our customers to better understand how to improve our product and services.
Taking into account the entire experience that our purchasers have with us gave Crest Nicholson an overall weighted satisfaction score of 82 out of 100. A score of over 75 means customers are satisfied, and 82 suggests that we are delivering a "very good" level of customer service.
Overall satisfaction
Our next step is to raise our overall customer satisfaction score to 87.5 by November 2010.
We want to ensure that if a purchaser does need to report a fault or problem with their new home, that we keep them fully updated as to when it will be resolved. We scored 71 - clearly indicating a focus for improvement in communications with our customers.
Effective communication
This is our first year of reporting results from our new survey and so for consistency we continue to report our performance in the HBF NHBC National New Homes survey.
| HBF National New Homes Survey |
% of responses very/fairly satisfied |
| HBF Benchmark |
2009 |
2008 |
2007 |
| Service provided during the buying process Service after moving in |
84.2 |
80.0 |
75.7 |
74 |
| Service after moving in |
74.7 |
79.2 |
67.4 |
59.7 |
| Overall satisfaction with the quality of the home |
87.2 |
89.7 |
81.7 |
74.6 |
| |
% of responses that would recommend |
| Recommend Crest Nicholson to a friend |
87.5 |
89.6 |
79.4 |
74.5 |
Better communication
We have listened to our customer feedback and we know that providing regular and honest communication is crucial to building and maintaining good relationships with all of our customers. We cannot afford to be complacent and we recognize that we need to improve the way we communicate with our customers, making sure they are kept informed at each stage of the process. This means thinking like a customer and embedding that mindset into our culture.
We are investing heavily in our I.T. systems to integrate the sales and customer care software into one single Customer Relationship Management system. These changes will support a more streamlined and efficient management process of the customer journey.
We have re-introduced performance-related bonus schemes which are linked to customer satisfaction levels, across all disciplines in the business.
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