Why five-star customer service is essential

It isn’t entirely true that the customer is always right, but it is certainly true that we should always be right for the customer.

Customer care and satisfaction is paramount whether someone is buying something for only a few pounds or spending hundreds of thousands on a new home.

It’s the difference between leaving a customer feeling valued and respected, or leaving them feeling dissatisfied and let down. It’s the difference between building a reputation for quality and caring that will earn you new and repeat customers, or one that will send out alarm bells whenever anyone hears or sees your name.

A business needs to invest time, effort and money to develop a strong brand reputation, but it will reap dividends, and is vital if you want to stand out from the competition and develop an instantly recognisable name that represents accountability, reliability, and integrity.

However, no amount of marketing will engender faith in you if word of mouth says something to the contrary, and that is more important today than ever before.

Gone are the days when an unhappy buyer would make their opinions known to family and friends.

In this digital age there are more avenues than ever for people to feedback their opinions, from review sites like Trustpilot and Feefo, to social media channels including Facebook, Instagram, Twitter and more. Negative posts can travel very far, very quickly, and can be destructive and damaging to any business.

Customer satisfaction can make or break a brand

You need to understand a customer’s needs, go out of your way to achieve them, and act on any promises or guarantees you make. Always treat your customers with respect and, if possible, exceed their expectations, to create the best experience you can offer, and, if there are any problems, be sure to handle them sensitively and carefully.

This is the third consecutive year that Castle Green has been recognised as a five-star homebuilder in the HBF’s annual customer satisfaction survey,  with more than 93% of Castle Green homeowners saying they would recommend the company to friends.

We’ve worked hard to ensure that as we increase the number of homes we build, the quality of our product remains consistently high and the introduction of a new, bespoke online customer portal has undoubtedly played a part in us maintaining high levels of satisfaction.

It includes a comprehensive system to report snags, an instant messaging tool, DIY videos, and a calendar of appointments, and it has meant we can streamline some of our processes to help ensure customers have all of the information they need at the click of a button.

While I can list all the reasons why from a business point of view good customer service and satisfaction makes sense, there is one over-riding factor: at the heart we should be committed to providing a good service and taking pride in what we do. Get that right, then everything else should follow.