The 2024 Secret Shop Results are Here!
Each year, we conduct the Homebuilder Online Follow-Up Survey and share the results so that builders can identify areas for improvement and implement the people, processes and tools to make it happen. Our comprehensive secret shop shows homebuilder follow-up from the customer's perspective. Since 2012, we have field-tested this online shop with hundreds of Online Sales Specialists.
We have partnered with
Clear Evaluations to develop the most accurate and fair shop in the industry for Online Sales Specialists. We surveyed a random sampling of 100 home builders from the 2024 Builder 200 list, as designated by Builder magazine. For each builder, we identified a specific active community on their website and filled out the "contact us" form requesting information. We conducted this shop in the months of July and August 2024 when overall lead volume was trending down and normal slowdown was occurring. Inquiries were submitted Monday - Friday during normal business hours, excluding lunchtime. In the submission, we included the following:
- Shopper name
- Email address
- Phone number
- Community of interest
- A specific question
We then tracked follow-up results for 30 days with no engagement or response from the shopper. At the end of the 30 days, a secret shopper called a random selection of 25 of the builders and conducted a live phone shop posing as an interested customer. In the first 30 days, we measured the following:
- Initial Response Time for email, call and text
- Quantity and types of touchpoints
- Personalization of initial response - Did they answer the questions asked and address the community of interest?
Download the survey results here!
