Homebulders should brush up on customer service, UF study shows

May 3, 2001

GAINESVILLE, Fla. — A lesson in the importance of customer service could help the construction industry better satisfy the demands of increasingly savvy customers, according to a new University of Florida study.

Researchers have found that customer service is the most important factor in shaping satisfaction for homebuyers, but it is not the area builders place last on their list.

Homebuyers are getting increasingly more demanding, said Robert Stroh, director of the Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing at UF and faculty adviser for the study.

“They are more informed, more aware and more knowledgeable about what goes into the building process,” he said. “Builders need to start changing their priorities because customer priorities certainly are changing.”

And as the spring homebuying season gets under way, making customers happy becomes more crucial than ever, Stroh said.

“Service means business,” he said. “A builder who is well known for outstanding service before and after a project is finished will capture a larger share of the market than one who is not.”

The study, published in the February issue of the Journal of Construction Engineering and Management, surveyed 293 recent home- buyers from 16 Florida-based home- builders.

A questionnaire was developed to measure homebuyer satisfaction in three categories: house design, house quality and customer service.

Participants answered a total of 51 questions on a scale of 1 to 7, with 7 being most satisfied. Based on those responses, the researchers ranked five elements as most important to customers: builders’ courtesy, communication, responsiveness, reliability and willingness to help.

Researchers then ranked each category in order of importance to those customers. The results showed service as having the greatest impact on overall homebuyer satisfaction, followed by design and house quality.

However, the study showed builders to be most concerned with the home design.

The scores showed homebuyers were least satisfied with the service they received, giving it mean score of 4.86. Homebuyers were slightly more satisfied with house quality, giving it a score of 5.21, and most satisfied with house design with a score of 6.05.

An analysis of the data suggests a gap between the levels of importance the three categories hold in shaping overall homebuyer satisfaction and the importance homebuilders place on those categories. Stroh said builders’ and customers’ priorities should correspond better. “The ratings should be identical, but they’re not,” he said.

Zeljko Torbica, now an assistant professor of the department of construction management at Florida International University, worked on the study as a graduate student at UF.