Modernizing the Design Selection Process for a Custom Home Builder

Client Testimonial

Summary/Problem

“Previously, our customers made design and product selections from a catalogue book we produced that was outdated as soon as we printed it. During the COVID-19 pandemic, there were a lot of discontinued items, like hardwood flooring, random cabinets, which required us to have to do change orders. Also, if the price of something goes up after the book is printed, we lose money. We’re losing about $150K a year honoring old pricing from old books, so taking our catalog online with this new platform will save us $150K right off the bat plus time plus the $70K we spend on printing the actual books themselves. When you start to add all this up, what we spent with Praxent will pay for itself by this time next year and will continue to pay for itself.

Results/ROI

“There are several reasons why this is going to be better for us. Internally, it’s more efficient. For our customer to be able to make selections online, the ROI is huge on several different levels. One of the biggest ones, for example, is the design appointment. If a customer comes in, and they can’t finalize the same day, we’ll lose a week. We have a humongous backlog right now. This online tool is going to help as far as scheduling appointments the same day, which is huge. It saves us a week. We build about 600 homes a year. So it adds up.

“Our design team, our product development team, everybody is in full agreement that when this happens, this is going to be humongous for us. It’s been a huge missing piece for us.

Roadmap, Other Challenges + Opportunities

“What we see is a long road here, a lot of improvements that we need, starting with our web page. We envision getting to the point where a customer can literally build their home online: put their home on their lot, know that’s going to fit, know what their exterior color selections are going to look like, and that they’re not the same color as the house next door. We’re not cookie-cutter at all. It’s a complicated process, but if a customer can have all that decided before they come to their agent, it’d be huge. 

“We’re also looking to develop an online portal, basically where there’s communication between our customer and us throughout the entire build. Building a house is different than buying an existing one. It’s very emotional. It’s very fun. But if you get somebody that’s very uptight, it can be stressful. When you’re building, subcontractors are going to paint the bedroom the wrong color. They’re going to break a window. And obviously, we’re going to fix that before you close, but you know for some people it can be stressful.

“We’re very customer driven. The national average of referrals for a builder is about 7 percent. We’re north of 50 to 60%. We have a good foundation; people know about us. They know about our name. We always do the right thing. We take care of them after warranty. 

“We’ve rebuilt our website a few times. We’ve got some 3D stuff, and we’ve got some cool things that we’ve developed, but I have to dig through the website to find them. And I work for this company. That’s where we see a lot of challenges, and then obviously you know if we could start there and then come to the design book app where they make other selections and go throughout. 

“It’s like do we want to start there or do we want to take a right turn and go more toward the customer platform? From a contract standpoint, from a paperwork standpoint, from a contact standpoint, this is about a six-month relationship we have with each of our customers. So, do we want to go the communication route? Because right now it’s emails, texts, phone calls. I could go on forever, but just a 30,000-foot view, that would be huge for us as well. Personally, I want to start with the marketing, you know, with the website, but there are some political things with the company that I’ve gotta work through to be able to get there. Tyler and I know the vision, and this could be a huge game changer for us as a company. 

Project Management

“We joke, but it’s like I’ve got at least a meeting or two a day with Praxent, but it’s good and bringing everybody together. They’ve done a fantastic job of really driving this. They heard what we wanted, and we’re on track to roll this out October 13. They’ve been on time, they’ve actually been a little under budget, and anytime I email any of them, it’s within 15 or 20 minutes we’ll get a response. So it’s been fantastic.

“Other companies we work with are one size fits all. We’re not one size fits all. That’s what I really like about Praxent. They’ve been very specific on where we want to go and what we’ve done.

“As long as they keep doing what they’re doing, we could have a long-term partnership with them. That’s what we’re looking for in the next year or two or three, because there’s still a lot more we want to accomplish, and I think they can help us get there.

Praxent vs. Off the Shelf, Internal

“We’ve looked at other platforms out there. NewStar (ERP) does all of our scheduling, our selections, everything. It’s a one size fits all. It was engineer built, it looks horrible, it isn’t user friendly, it isn’t customer friendly. Other platforms exist, but we want one that’s a specific fit for us, nothing off the shelf. Again, I go back to Praxent and how they explained that off the shelf doesn’t work. And they gave specific numbers. Then we asked them, What’s your failure rate? I think they said 5 or 10%, which sold us too.

“We tried the off-the-shelf stuff. We tried to build our own stuff. And we saw all the money we lost because it didn’t work in the end.”

“We’re seeing [the ‘Cone of Uncertainty’] at work now. We’re getting closer and closer to the end, and all the stuff we thought wouldn’t work we figured out how to work.

“It’s a humongous investment on our part, so we definitely want to make sure it’s the right company. It was a unanimous decision that Praxent was the one, and we feel very confident. They haven’t proven this wrong yet.”