Social Media, Websites and Success – Survey Results

Over Sixty locations participated in the December 8th Webinar – Social Media, Websites, and Success of your Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Initiatives.  Forty percent of you responded to the post-webinar survey.   We received lots (pages) of great  comments (see “more” below) about what you liked and where we could improve the webinar content and format.   Here are the results (pdf).  Thanks for your obvious excitement and involvement in these discussions and we will work to meet your rising expectations!

Brooks and Wes Powell, Powell Homes and TMR Direct – Blogs and Websites, Webinar Preview

Brooks Powell, the Powell Homes and Remodeling, will be joined by Wes Powell of TMR Direct to make a presentation that is sure to engage as they describe their company’s experience using Blogs, White Papers, and Website Search Engine Optimization media to drive sales activity.  I believe you will enjoy their webinar presentation and we hope you will be able to join the discussion.  Please preview his slide presentation here.  

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Chip Pennington, Shea Homes and Customer Service Websites, Webinar Preview

Chip Pennington, the Director of Customer Service for Shea Homes, will make a presentation that is sure to inform you as he describes his company’s experience using a customer service portal to interact with homeowners and manage customer expectations.  I believe you will enjoy his presentation and we invite you join the discussion.  Please preview his presentation here.  

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Steve Shoemaker, Ideal Homes and Social Media, Webinar Preview

Steve Shoemaker, the Director of Marketing for Idea Homes, will make a presentation that is sure to entertain as he describes his company’s experience using Facebook, YouTube and traditional media to drive referral sales.  I believe you will enjoy his presentation and we invite you join the discussion.  Please preview his presentation here.     

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Social Media, Websites and Success of your Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Initiatives

The rapid rise of Social Media makes it crucial that your sales, marketing and customer service teams learn how to participate and manage customer expectations. This webinar will reveal how several different builders are taking advantage of Social Media and your web presence to build referral sales, generate website leads, and promote customer service.

Webinar Event:  “Social Media, Websites and Success of your Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Initiatives” on December 8th at 2:00PM EST.

During this one-hour webinar we will discuss the following questions:

• How important is Social Media for the success of your future sales, marketing and customer service initiatives?
• Is the web presence you spent thousands of dollars to build providing you any kind of return on your investment? How can you tell?
• Who in your organization should be involved and knowledgeable with Social Media?

– Click on the enroll now link to register

Our panel members for the upcoming webinar discussion are:

• Steve Shoemaker, Director of Marketing of Ideal Homes
• Brooks Powell, Home Advisor, Powell Custom Homes & Powell Renovations
• Chip Pennington, Director of Customer Service at Shea Homes
• Charlie Scott, Partner at Woodland, O’Brien & Scott
• Wes Powell, President, TMR Direct
• Brad Brickman, General Manager of Constellation BuildSERV

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Comments and Survey Report – Referral Sales Strategies

Thanks for the strong response to the recent webinar and discussion.  Although we would love to see you comment directly on the blog site.   All of you provided us with information enthusiastically with many comments in the survey.   I have listed what you like and where we can improve below.   And a graphic at the end that shows an encouraging trend.  We really appreciate your involvement and hope you can join us on December 8th at 1:00PM Central for a webinar and discussion: “Social Media, Websites and Success of your Marketing, Sales and Customer Service Initiatives.”

Here is what you liked the most:

• Different ideas on how to follow up and cultivate referrals
• Charlie Scott’s insight was helpful and practical as usual
• I’m in the Maryland area, and was able to hear the views of others builders outside the Md, Washington,Dc area
• Presentation was direct and concise
• Good info
• Concepts are well thought out within the individual companies and its nice to hear that although they are similiar they have their own identity.
• Referral Sales Strategies
• Examples of how other people have tried to get referrals (cupcakes, tree, YouTube testimonials)
• I got some good insights on ways to earn the right to ask for a referral
• Showing examples of other companies printed pieces
• I like hearing what works (and what doesn’t work) for other builders.  I also liked being reminded that we need to ramp our emphasis up regarding the hospitality our company presents to the customer and the simple logic behind Ideal Homes cupcake gifts.  Thanks for sharing Steve
• The fresh idea’s and actual marketing materials that were presented
• Harvesting referral sales
• Speakers willingness to share what has worked for them
• The presentation by Ideal Homes on how to actually increase referral sales
• Great informed conversations, and multiple speakers was good too!

Here are some areas we can improve upon:

• May be try to allow more time, even it means 2 webinars and/or discussion after the topic presented before moving on to next topic.
• A little more lively.
• you did a great job
• Is it possible that we can watch the video again?
• The title “referral sales strategies” made it sound like it was about strategies when most of the presentation was about surveys and surveying.  The actual referral strategies was a small component towards the end.  I did enjoy the overall webinar.
• Move it along; one or two of the presenters seemed to be gathering their thoughts as they spoke.
• Pick up the pace – I think you could have covered all the material in 45 minutes
• The flow of presentations was a little shaky at times. This was not a big distraction, and Brad did a good job of maintaining control.
• Although content was very good  –  overall delivery could be improved.
• Try to keep at 1 hour including questions.
• It felt kind of chopped up as you jumped back and forth between presenters, but the pace was good.
• nothing, I liked the format and info.
• More time for Q&A.  Moving slower with some materials providing the webinar slides in a printable format to share with other members of our company that were unable to sit in; easier to share the information that way can we view the slide show after the webinar?
• The gentlemen from Ideal Homes did not add enough substance to his comments.

If there is an “Ultimate Question” for the webinars….it might be the one below.   Compared to the previous webinar, more of the you indicated the likelihood was “very high” that you or a team member would attend the next webinar in the series.  You can view the entire survey results here.

The Ultimate Question for CED Webinar Series

Referral Sales Webinar – Now act on it!

Thank you for attending the “Referral Sales Strategies” webinar hosted by The Customer Experience Discussion.  We had a record number of attendees hear our industry leading panelists.  Steve Shoemaker, Ideal Homes, Chip Pennington, Shea Homes and Charlie Scott, Woodland, O’Brien & Scott all shared many successful prerequisites and practices to help builders achieve significantly higher customer satisfaction and referral sales.

Participants heard some very actionable ideas to help foster both customer satisfaction and grow future referral sales.  If you heard something of value – ACT ON IT!  This is the mission of The Customer Experience Discussion – to identify, and act on business building strategies!

The Cupcake Strategy – Upcoming Discusion for Referral Sales

Ideal Homes – Cupcakes

Charlie, Chip and I have been busy investigating how homebuilders are adapting to a rapidly changing marketplace to increase customer referral sales.  Steve Shoemaker, Director of Marketing, Ideal Homes will discuss their “Cupcake for Company” strategy.   Steve reveals how his sales team uses gifts as ammunition to help their customers tell friends about their Ideal Homes buying story.  And there is much more you will learn as you interact with the panelists on Wednesday, Nov 3rd at 1:00 PM Central.  Please sign up here and invite a friend to join us.

The slides below are a snapshot of some of the images and topics that will be presented during the webinar.  Please use this slides to gain knowledge about the upcoming webinar to prepare questions that the panelists will answer during and after the webinar.  I hope you can join us!

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Webinar: Referral sales strategies: Best practices to achieve better sales referral rates

We are pleased to announce our next webinar: Referral sales strategies: Best practices to achieve better sales referral rates” the second on our series on November 3rd at 2:00PM EST.  

The panel members for this webinar discussion are:

• Steve Shoemaker, Director of Marketing of Ideal Homes , recoginized as 2010 Builder of the Year, Professional Builder Magazine
• Brad Brickman, General Manager of Ownership Guide by Constellation HomeBuilder Systems, Inc
• Charlie Scott, Partner at Woodland, O’Brien & Scott

During the webinar you will learn about the following topics:

• Earning the right to ask for Sales Referrals
• Collecting useful customer feedback
• Strategies for harvesting referral sales opportunities
• Referral sales best practices by industry leaders
• What is at stake – Why referral sales are crucial for your future success!

– Click on the enroll now link to register. There is no charge for this webinar pr0gram.

Please come and join us for the next discussion.  Please communicate your referral sales questions as a comment to this blog p0st.  We will make an effort to address your questions first in the webinar session.

1st Webinar Assessment – Referral Sales Next

All indications from survey results for our first webinar “Prerequisites for Customer Satisfaction” indicate we are headed in the right direction with the webinar series and The Customer Experience Discussion.  Here are some of the important indicators:  

1. Strong Attendance – About 95 homebuilding professionals participated in our very first webinar.
2. Everyone Stayed for Overtime  – Virtually all the participants stayed connected for the duration of the webinar plus 10 minutes of overtime.
3. Very Positive Survey Response – All 17 participants responding indicated the likelihood was “high” or “very high” that they or a member of their team would attend the next webinar in the series. 

My favorite quote about what a participant liked is “I have attended very few webinars and this exceeded my expectations in every aspect.” 

Area for Improvements:

1. Not enough time for questions and answers. 
2. At times the presenters moved too quickly through important content.
3. Provide the slides of the presentation to participants in advance.
4. Since we have many participants in Canada, a presenter representing their markets would provide a helpful perspective.

There were many additional helpful comments that we appreciate which you can viewed using this link.  We will work toward improvements in all of these areas.

Next Up: Referral Sales – Would you like to help us present?

The next webinar topic is” “Referral sales strategies: Best practices to achieve better sales referral rates”- November 3rd at 1:00 PM Central, 2010.  We have identified one builder presenter and we are looking for another builder with referral sales experiences they would like to share.  Charlie Scott will facilitate this discussion and help with the presentation preparation.  Please contact any of us (Chip, Charlie or me) if you might be interested in presenting.