Article originally posted on builderonline.com
Homebuilders can harness the power of industry-leading insights with cutting edge technology.
Data analytics isn’t merely a nice-to-have feature for professionals working in the home building industry — it’s a powerful tool that drives efficiencies from the showroom to the boardroom and builds a customer experience that boosts sales and satisfaction.
The power of this technology is clear: Interior Logic Group (ILG) data insights reveal that home buyers spend 3 hours on average online before their design appointment, and options sales tend to be about 30% higher when online design tools are used.
Let’s look at one practical example of how data boosts efficiency in a traditional showroom environment:
A buyer sits down with a designer to customize the kitchen in their new home. After some conversation to gauge the tastes and budget of the customer, the designer presents three or four backsplash options, for example, and after some discussion, a decision is made.
The process is important, but subjective and time-consuming, putting pressure on both the buyer to quickly make choices and the designer to understand the buyer’s tastes and spending limits.
Virtual design platforms have enabled designers to add a valuable step into the process before the buyer ever enters the showroom. This technology allows buyers to investigate — at their leisure — all the options and create their customized dream kitchen in a virtual space before engaging with the designer. This technology also enables the designer to develop a truly informed understanding of the buyer’s preferences and how they fit into the overarching trends in the marketplace. The buyer knows what they want when they walk into the showroom and the designer can have the selected samples ready to review and can focus the conversation on budget and manage the customer experience.
The data gathered by the platform is not only helpful to the buyer and designer, but also to the home builder. There’s tremendous value in understanding which products buyers ultimately choose, which ones are never selected, and which products are frequently viewed but never selected.
Robust, instant, customized daily insights and reporting are just some of the features that appealed to Ben Clarke, Vice President of National Home Gallery, Options, and Customer Experience at Richmond American Homes, who recently began working with Roomored, the nation’s leading virtual sales and design platform.
“While a lot of home builders are moving away from personalization in favor of pre-packaged design options, Richmond American Homes is always looking for solutions that allow our customers to retain their creative vision in a way that’s cost-effective for us,” says Clarke. “In service of those goals, we’re very data-centric, so Roomored’s virtual sales and design platform checked all the boxes in helping Richmond American build to our maximum potential.”
As a national business, Clark says, Richmond American Homes works with its regional design centers to analyze sales data and various trends to find the right combination of product offerings. Adding a virtual design platform to their tech stack enables decision-makers to act swiftly with powerful information.
“Roomored will give us info on what buyers like but aren’t buying. That information is useful because it will allow us to ask questions like ‘Are we offering the right mix of options?’ ‘Are we pricing options correctly?’ ” says Clarke. “We expect Roomored to help our organization analyze more objective data with ease and gives us agility and confidence in our forecasting and product rationalization, which has a big knock-on effect with our sourcing and manufacturing partners.”
With modern solutions like Roomored, home builders can harness the power of industry-leading insights and forward-looking strategies that help them understand which products buyers value. With that knowledge, home builders can ensure they’ve got the right products available at the right price at the right time. All of which drives design center efficiency and optimizes outcomes.
Learn more at Roomored.com.