Video Mystery Shopping: The Results are in for Benchmark 2014!
Each year Melinda Brody and Company compiles a detailed report for all of our New Homebuilding clients that show each builder where they rank nationwide among other builders in several key areas of the new home sales presentation. Well, the results for Melinda Brody and Company’s 2014 Benchmark Survey are in!
This much anticipated survey tracks the results of all of the video mystery shops we have done throughout the year. In 2014, we conducted over 900 video shops for 44 builder divisions! Whew, that’s a lot of video mystery shopping! The Benchmark Study allows us to analyze and see the ‘trends’ that are taking place in the home building industry. It gives our clients an opportunity to see where they rank against other builders, the areas where they are doing extremely well, and the areas where improvement is possible. It also allows us to put our finger on the pulse of what is going on nationwide in the homebuilding industry. Builders’ sales teams are rated in the areas of registration, model and home site demonstration, the builder’s story, closing, and follow up.
So, what did we learn? Sadly, most of the scores went down in each category, with the exception of the Builder’s story and Closing. The biggest drop was in the Follow Up category. Only 65% of our new home sales associates are following up with their clients. This is a huge missed opportunity. You’ve got to have a follow up system in place. There really is no excuse for this. I recommend that sales managers focus on helping your sales associates put a systems in place to make follow up a natural part of the sales presentation.
The one category that always ranks dead last in the survey is closing. While the overall score did increase by 1%, an effort to close the buyer was only attempted in 54% of ALL the video mystery shops. Plain and simple folks, you can’t make the sale if you don’t close the buyer….and you can’t close the buyer if you don’t ask for the sale.
