26 Oct How can 149Photos protect your backlog?
Homebuilders face many challenges in today’s market including rising interest rates, softening purchase activity, and high cancellation rates. Customers are reconsidering and even walking away from their original decision to purchase a new home. While it is hard to insulate your company from cancellations, they can be minimized through a strategy of communication that includes ongoing progress photos from 149Photos. Helping minimize emotional lows, while maximizing excitement, will aid you in retaining your customers in backlog.
One of the best strategies to help minimize customer cancellations is to simply stay in touch. If a customer thinks there is no progress on their home, they might start thinking about how to back out of the deal. Your customer may be talking to others, or just thinking to themselves, that buying a new home in this economy and market is a bad idea. Consider having your sales agents or other team members communicate with your customers on a weekly or so basis. Create a true relationship with your customers so that they remain comfortable throughout the process and reduce the stress our current environment is causing them.
Many of your customers may not be able to check-in on the building progress of their new home, perhaps due to currently living out of state. So, you need a way to allow them to see the progress of their home easily and often. That’s where 149Photos comes in. We help deeply engage and emotionally connect your customers and protect your backlog with weekly foundation-to-finish new home construction photos. A highly engaged buyer develops a deep emotional connection with their new home. By allowing your customers to see the progress of their new home weekly, the thoughts of cancellation fade away.
Buyers will remain excited with each new set of photos they are notified about. They can then share these photos, and their experience, with friends and family online. We do all the work to provide your new home buyers with these weekly progress photos while you reap the benefits. Our team of professional photographers allow your customers to see their new home being built no matter where they are in the world. By being able to see their home’s construction progress, your customers grow more and more connected to it. This means they become less and less likely to cancel their contract on it.
Just like the ongoing weekly communication that we recommend as a vital part of backlog management, the 149Photos weekly progress photos help tie everything together. Allow your sales agents to utilize the 149Photos platform to visually show your customers the progress of their homes rather than just telling them about what’s happening with it. Visually seeing the changes in their new home creates emotional bonds with that house and build excitement. Keeping your customer happy and excited is vital to protecting your backlog, and nothing helps create that excitement more than regularly seeing it built from the ground up.
If you’re ready to protect your backlog and continue staying profitable, give us a call today. We’ve taken over 8.6 million photos of over 60,000 homes across the country. Greatly reduce the chance of contract cancelation with the deep emotional connection that is created with turn-key, weekly construction progress photos. You worked hard to earn their trust, now protect your backlog and keep those customers. You’ll also boost your income and profits by minimizing cancellations. Let 149Photos create RAVING FANS that are deeply engaged with your brand and share their experience.
Article by David Glaeser