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Sherwood Snapshot

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Company: Sherwood Homes (a division of Reid’s Heritage Group, Guelph, Ont.)

Headquarters: Collingwood, Ontario

Principal: Terry Kloepfer

Employees: 11

Operations: Collingwood, Ontario

Market segments: Families (second home) and empty-nesters (retirement)

Product: Single-family detached homes and attached townhouses

2010 Closings: 45

2010 Revenues: $13.5 million

 

 

Take an HD Video Tour of a Sherwood Home

 

 

 

Terry Kloepfer is retired now, but he sure went out with a bang. One of the last things he did as leader of Sherwood Homes in Collingwood, Ontario, was talk to AvidBuilder.com a few weeks ago about how that small, cottage country division of Reid’s Heritage Group — a Southern Ontario-based production builder — set the benchmark in customer satisfaction for all of Canada.

With just 11 employees, Sherwood closed 45 sales for $13.5 million in housing revenue in 2010. Heritage, meanwhile, does about 445 closings a year, on everything from entry product at $180,000 to custom homes at $900,000. The average sale for the company is about $295,000, Kloepfer says.

Sherwood attributes much of its success to its customer care strategy, which includes appointing a project coordinator to be a buyer’s key contact as soon as the contract is signed. This person takes the customer through all selections of options and upgrades, as well as any custom changes to the house plans — and Sherwood does a lot of custom changes. But the project coordinator doesn’t stop there. She retains the lead position as customer contact right through construction and into the warranty service period after closing.

Just glancing at Sherwood’s top five scoring categories, it’s easy to see that the project coordinator plays a big role in all of them. The firm’s top five survey topics are all well ahead of the Canadian housing industry average:

1. Days past to make corrections (13.31 points above Canadian average).

2. Prompt, accurate answers (+12.23).

3. Presented a wide selection (+11.64).

4. Knowledgeable about options (+11.52).

5. Time taken to correct items (+11.35)

This approach works so well for Sherwood that the company ended 2010 with an AVID Index Score of 277.598, the highest in all of Canada. Plus, 99 percent of its surveyed buyers say they would refer family and friends to the builder.

“Our high customer sat scores are attributable to (Heritage’s) company culture — which is consistent in all the divisions,” says Kloepfer. “That is based on treating every customer as unique and just as we’d all want to be treated ourselves.”

The project coordinator position is the key to implementing this culture on the firing line, and it is working better in Collingwood than anywhere else. “This is not a position that exists in most building companies,” says Jennifer Desroches, Sherwood’s project coordinator. “It’s why I took the job here. It really speaks to me to be able to help people get the house they really want, one that will meet their needs as their family grows.”

Obviously, Desroches is not hemmed in by a job description. She is taking an advisory position with buyers, gaining their trust, and achieving results on behalf of buyers as well as Sherwood Homes.

Jack of All Trades

Once the contract is signed, Desroches meets with the new homeowners to go over the building plans drawn by the company’s designers, most of whom are in Guelph, some 90 miles away, but one is stationed in Collingwood. “We talk through any custom changes they want to make, and we allow them to make any change that will fit on the lot and meet codes, including structural alterations,” Desroches says. (Considering that custom changes carry a builder markup, that makes the project coordinator position a profit center as well as the key to customer satisfaction.)

But the project coordinator is not just the contact for the customers; Desroches handles every aspect of the project, including ordering products, applying for building permits, and sending all the information to the trades that they need to complete their work. “The site supers do the customer walks at pre-drywall and pre-closing,” says Desroches. “They’re in charge on the jobsite, and they bust their butts to keep customers happy.” But she sets up the meetings.

Kloepfer says this kind of coordination is especially critical for Sherwood, since most of its buyers are purchasing second homes in Collingwood, which is both a winter ski resort and a summer vacation area on the shores of Georgian Bay. “They mostly live many miles away in Southern Ontario,” he says. “We give them work boots and hard hats at contract, and tell them to visit anytime, but call first!”

They call Desroches.

Considering how well the project coordinator position works for Sherwood, why don’t more builders have one? As long as they operate below 50 closings a year, that’s not a bad idea. But it won’t be easy to find candidates with the needed combination of organizational skills and a deft touch for customer relations.

In larger companies, the roles of leading home buyers through selections and customization are usually split from day-to-day customer contact, which is growing more complex by the minute, thanks to social media and the electronic communications revolution. And we don’t see production builders anywhere in North America combining both of those roles with purchasing and trade relations. In that regard, the way Sherwood operates is closer to a small custom builder than anything else.

Kloepfer acknowledges as much when he notes that Reid’s Heritage Group is actually moving away from using the project coordinator as the one and only customer contact from closing into warranty. “We haven’t started it up north yet, but Heritage is moving to a system where the salesperson will be the only contact with the customer from start to finish. Sales has the first contact, and they establish a relationship of trust with the customer. This is a change that seems to be happening across the industry, driven by the increasing use of cell phones and e-mail. But to assume that contact role after contract and all the way into warranty, the salespeople will need training. It’s not something you can roll out overnight.”

Even at Sherwood’s level of operations, asking one person to handle both customers and communication with the trades is a lot. “We put a great deal of emphasis on our trades,” Kloepfer says. “We can’t please customers without trades who act as an extension of our own company. They’re the ones who actually build the houses!”

And finding trades that meet Sherwood’s standards for construction quality is not always easy in a small resort town like Collingwood. “Our trade base stretches to about a 40-mile radius,” says Kloepfer. “We could bring in trades from Guelph, where Reid’s Heritage Group is headquartered. But that’s 90 miles and a different world. We prefer to use the local trades whenever we can.”

Sherwood Homes is doing just fine in Collingwood. If you don’t believe it, just ask one of its customers.

Bill Lurz has been reporting on every aspect of the home-building industry since 1970. A former editor-in-chief of Canadian Building and senior editor of Professional Builder, Bill is currently editor-in-chief of AvidBuilder.com. He can be reached at bill.lurz@avidbuilder.com.