When I first landed the job at First Pacifica Housing as Manager of Customer Services, I was ecstatic. This was my dream job. The goal I had been reaching for, for some time. I had worked my way through the housing industry. I began as a secretary for a GC, then as an estimator for an electrical sub contractor, then onto customer service for another electrical sub. Over the years, I had run equipment, worked on road crews, and set up traffic control, and knew what a good pad should look and feel like. I knew what a monolithic pour was, when sleeves should be set. I knew rough in and electrical finish. Soon I was recruited to a Customer Service position with a large Southern California builder, where the dream would begin.

Here is where I learned how to work with the home owner, about SB800 and the ins and outs of new home warranties. This is where I fell in love with Customer Care. Where I would begin to hone my skills, and learn how to walk a home, do a punch list, decide what was a warrantable issue or home owner maintenance and how to handle a full blown water intrusion.  Everything I had learned over the years from reading plans, deciphering contracts to electrical issues, I applied here. When I didn’t have an answer I found one. If I could not understand what a home owner was trying to explain to me, I spent my lunch hour going to look for myself. I was the first one in the door and the last to leave late into the night.

November 17th rolled in as a cold blustery morning as I made my way into my new office. I arrived and was promptly greeted by the Director of Construction who showed me to my office, a front row seat on the first floor over looking the court yard of the 6 story Citi Bank building. I was in shock as I sat down to the desk that had been empty for months, the message light blinking furiously on the phone. As I looked around at the stacks of documents, unentered homeowner request for repairs and unopened mail lining the desk continuing over the top of the 6 filing cabinets, I dug in, working late into the night for weeks.
It took days to listen to all of the messages in voice mail, dig out homeowner files and match paperwork.  Here is where it was just beginning.  In talking with my homeowners, I found that they needed much more than a voice on the phone.  I began scheduling in home appointments to meet with them, walk the property and complete the repair list.  I was spending more than half of my time in the field.  When I wasn't with a homeowner, I was with my field techs and supers training them in home warranty, SB800, contracts and basic listening skills. The list was long, the days were longer.  But the outcome was a success. 

I walked every inventory house.  When I showed up unannounced to do my first walk, the super on site was less than thrilled.  However when I handed him a punch list, he had a new attitude towards me, and towards the product, seeing that there was room for improvement.  We, as a team would be delivering  a top notch home move in ready every time.  The supers began to apply my policy and procedure during the construction phase alleviating customer service issues on the back side, as well as holding subcontractors to the contracts and enforcing them.  Oddly enough this had not been done on a regular basis.  I had found that we were being billed often by our subs for warranty work, because there were not effective policy and procedure, so these bills were never in question and paid to the tune of hundreds of thousands of dollars.

So where do you go from here?  How do I begin to wrangle in subs that did what they wanted, how do I train old school superintendents and field reps with no real knowledge on the law and liability and best practices?  How do I bring back hostile homeowners from litigation?  How do I gain the homeowners trust?

Come back and see...