The National House Building Council’s (NHBC) Annual Review 2012/13 announced survey results showing of 29,330 new home buyer’s, 91% are ‘very’ or ‘fairly satisfied’ with the quality of their new home and the same number would recommend their house builder to a friend. The NHBC claim “with another year-on-year increase, these levels of customer satisfaction still match or exceed those in almost any other industry or sector and are testament to the industry’s commitment to deliver quality new homes that meet the expectations of their homebuyers.”
However, the “increase” is just 1% more than the HBF 2013 survey results from a sample size of just 20,313. The HBF survey represents barely a fifth of the total number (109,730) of privately sold new homes built in the survey year, which is hardly representative.
The NHBC claim to send out over 100,000 questionnaires annually with a response rate was between 50 and 75%. They have now also launched a new online platform enabling participating house builders to easily review their feedback in much more detail than before and they can also compare their customer satisfaction scores with those of their competitors. The platform also gives builders opportunity to add a number of bespoke questions to the surveys, allowing them to change the questionnaire to meet their own specific requirements.