From Pennsylvania: We’d become pretty good at getting closure on our warranty work orders then the market shifted and our system seems to have fallen apart. Our best warranty rep retired and was not replaced. Now appointments get missed, homeowners wait at home all day and someone shows up at 4:45 but can’t do the repair, or half of the work gets done but the promised return visit never materializes. I catch the results by phone and email.
Effective repair appointments begin with accurate diagnosis and sufficient details about the repair item. With your veteran expert gone, this may be one root cause of your frustration. The technical knowledge of warranty reps is critical to getting this part right. Training and experience are invaluable in this work. Who is doing inspections now? How can he/she learn more about diagnosing items accurately?
Conveying all details to the repair technician on the work order is next. Back up these efforts by being accessible if questions arise. With the right information the trade knows exactly what to do, what materials and tools to bring, and how much time to schedule in the home.
Emphasize the goal of “one visit repair” from the beginning with trade contractors; include this topic on your trade contractor orientation agenda. With veteran trades, a phone call may be in order. Ask how things are going and what you can do to help ensure warranty items are completed efficiently. Although sales are down, a builder’s warranty obligations (and therefore the trades’) to homeowners continues.
Some repairs legitimately involve several steps by one trade or require the efforts of several trades in sequence. Explain the steps to the homeowner and plan on the extra administrative attention needed to move trades through the home in rapid succession.
Keep in mind too that many trade contractors have let staff go due to the current market conditions. Work with them to create efficiencies. When possible organize appointments geographically to reduce road time. Apply the work date approach, where the homeowner arranges access to the home at least 10 business days out and all trades get this date on the work order.
Finally, invest some time analyzing each work order that causes this kind of problem. First the number may not be as large as it seems; because these situations carry some emotional baggage they can be magnified in your memory. Get an accurate count and then look for common causes. Is this just one or two trades? A particular product line? A few busy homeowners? As you identify root causes, look for those that can be eliminated and address them one by one.
Consider a technical solution. For instance, our Homsoft system opens each day with a list of follow up items. Reminders or confirmation calls take very little time when a concise list is readily available. For a demonstration of this system, call Tracey Gundersen in Minnesota at 952-201-5036.
