Supporting Your Customer’s Disaster Recovery
Your Customer, Your Neighbor
Your Customer is In Shock
- It is likely not your typical customer
- They have a reduced “bandwidth” for making decisions
- Reduced options for a less overwhelming experience
- You might experience material shortages
DESIGNING THEIR NEW HOME
- The customer might want the exact same design
- It doesn’t have to be the same
- Improve the design from what they had
- What if the customer is under insured?
Calm Decision Making
Your customer is in shock. Even if they are presenting themselves as together and making it through – they are in shock. The fire survivor customer is a much different customer than we are typically used to working with. They haven’t dreamed of building a new home and they haven’t been pursuing Houzz and watching HGTV. They have been thrown into this.
They are overwhelmed, and in our experience, many had a reduced bandwidth for making decisions. In our area, most of the homes were of similar quality and size so we set up our rebuilt homes like they were like homes in a subdivision by grouping pre-selected items for them to pick from. Here are your plumbing fixtures choices, here are you countertop selections, etc…
These prepackaged selections turned out to be really helpful for them. We were told over and over again how they were very thankful for giving them selections to pick from and not having it be wide open as it narrowed down their decision making. Of course, if someone wanted to upgrade from these packages they could upgrade and make any selections they wanted.
Remember this customer has been thrown into this situation and is just trying to get their home rebuilt, while trying to deal with everything else they have lost.
Another consideration, you are going to be experiencing supply shortages, be careful to pick products that are mostly likely to still be available and easier to access. The more unique or rare item will cause huge delays in the construction process.
Better Meet Their Current Needs
One thing we ran into again and again was the customer wanting to just put back what they had before. I believe this was due to a couple factors; reduced ability to make decisions, and they want back the comforts of what they knew before. It is simpler and familiar to them to just build back what you know rather than think about a new floor plan and design.
Know you don’t have to rebuild exactly what they had. We worked hard to get people to reconsider a different floor plan or layout that better met their current needs and to improve upon the design they had. Our customers thanked us for leaning them towards other options and not just giving into their initial impulse.
Also if your customer is under insured there are still options. In cases where the customer didn’t have enough coverage to replace what they had. We would tell them that it was ok to build back even if the home was smaller. A well-designed smaller home can often feel bigger than their previous home especially when it’s designed to their exact needs.
You don’t have to rebuild exactly what they had but you have to build a “like for like.” The insurance money is to rebuild a home of similar sq. ft. with similar amenities to what was lost. The floor plan, 1 story or 2 never mattered. When customers wanted a bigger home or upgrades over what they had, I tracked those costs separately. I would even put it in the contract. $xxx to rebuild the home and $xxx for additional sq. ft. and upgrades. The insurance company will ask for a copy of the signed construction contract.
