Davidson Homes, a quickly growing home builder based out of Huntsville, Alabama, won the
Market Proof Award for Best Post-Purchase Customer Experience for their online review initiative.
Lindsey Tapscott, Director of Marketing/Online Sales, was a driving force behind the campaign, and she recognized that online starred reviews were an important part of the customer experience, especially since the vast majority of customers begin their home search online.
The initiative started with executive buy-in, which Lindsey said was the heart of the project. Davidson Homes wanted each division to embrace just how important a positive customer experience was for the company and to make it a priority for everyone involved.
Three surveys sent directly from the company turned out to be a critical piece of the initiative. Davidson Homes has a survey for the design center process, another for closing, and one for warranty/customer service. Survey results are imported into a spreadsheet using Zapier, which triggers an email to people who have had a positive experience. It also allows the company to celebrate when they find areas where they’re doing a great job. If someone hasn’t had a positive experience, the company identifies areas that could be improved.
To accomplish the team’s goal to increase their volume of reviews, they needed to make it easy for homebuyers to leave a review. They created business cards for employees to share with their homebuyers. The cards include a QR code that can easily be scanned to take the homebuyer directly to Davidson Homes’ Google Review page. Lindsey also created tabletop signs to display in the sales offices and model homes, encouraging people to leave reviews.
Lindsay knew that they’d need the entire company on board to increase the number of online reviews, so they developed special forms of recognition for divisions and individuals within the company who embraced the initiative. The division with the most reviews quarterly would win a catered lunch and a trophy. They also entered employees who received a positive review into a drawing for a prize.
Overall, their approach was a big success, and the program brought their online rating from 3.7 stars to 4.4 stars and from 64 total reviews to 183 reviews.
Lindsay recommends that anyone wanting to increase their online reviews start with leadership and then earn buy-in from the rest of the company. By getting employees excited about the program, they’ve been able to celebrate their success with everyone involved.
