Customer Relationships

Key issues

A key objective for the homebuilding business both in the UK and North America is to continually improve the quality of the homes we build and the service we offer to our customers.

In the UK, we guide or customers through the homebuying process from the moment they reserve until two years after legal completion in what we call ‘the customer journey’. Customer satisfaction with their ‘journey’ is monitored through a postal questionnaire and telephone contact. The results of these customer ratings form part of the incentive scheme for directors, senior managers, site managers and assistant site managers.

Performance

Within the UK, in addition to our own quality inspections, all homes are inspected by the NHBC on five occasions during construction and once on completion. These inspections are carried out to ensure that the appropriate standards and regulations are being met. Any issues picked up by the NHBC are recorded on site and signed off once rectified. The NHBC issues quarterly reports detailing the performance of individual developments in Taylor Wimpey and allows comparison with other developers. Elements of the incentive scheme for our site and senior managers are based on performance in respect of NHBC inspections and also on the results of our customer surveys regarding quality and service.

In North America we are committed to giving our customers the best service that we can offer and seek to continually improve our customer experience, with the help of satisfaction researchers such as J D Power.

We have seen an improving trend over the last three years in our North American overall satisfaction scores, with a particular focus on improving the state of the home that we handover to our customers.  We have recently reviewed our customer satisfaction survey process to improve the quality of the feedback and to ensure it drives management action and decision-making.

Our Construction business uses an approach called ‘Heartbeat’ to monitor and measure customer satisfaction through a mix of interviews, surveys and workshops. The overall satisfaction rate for 2006 was 86 per cent, continuing the trend of improvement since measurement began in 2001 and demonstrating an ability to consistently deliver our promises.