All a business needs to succeed is satisfied customers. Unfortunately despite HBF survey claims to the contrary, new home buyers are far from satisfied.
In fact 75% of the house buying public would
never buy a new home.Other businesses learn the hard way that the quality and reliability of their product or service is non-negotiable.
Just look at John Lewis. Or how Tesco and Barclays are changing the way they do things.
Surprisingly, few if any house builders are committed to addressing the dreadful reputation the industry has, continuing to build small, dark new homes riddled with defects and then trying to wriggle out of fixing them.
Product is one of the four P's of marketing: Product - Price - Promotion - Place.
Yet it is often the most overlooked.
Businesses are increasingly investing in mass marketing to make brands flourish on advertising promises, without any organisational mechanisms and procedures in place to ensure the promises are delivered. Businesses should be oriented around their customer's needs and wants, not Big Brand self-promotion.
House builders need to wake up and see that if their product is not right, no amount spent on marketing will make their business a success.
Rather than relying on planning gain increases in land values to provide the profits margins their investors demand.
If just one major house builder cottoned-on to this, putting quality and home design ahead of targets, figures and profits, they would find they would have far more success that they could possibly imagine.
A brand will only succeed and grow when it produces something that everyone wants, that is better than anyone else can produce.
In house building, starting from a low base, being better is not that big an ask!