There are many things that every modular home factory wants
their website to do for them. They want people searching the Internet to find
their homes and hopefully to choose one. The website also has to attract new
builders and provide them with a reason to contact the factory.
Just about everyone has searched the Internet looking for a
home plan at one time. There are thousands of websites offering floorplans.
There are hundreds of sites dedicated exclusively the modular homes. The
problem is not quantity, it’s a total disconnect for many prospective new home
buyers with the modular housing industry even if the were specifically looking
for a modular home.
Unlike a car manufacturer that can immediately link a
website viewer to the appropriate dealer, knowing that the dealer will have
someone contacting the viewer ASAP, most modular home factories have a black
hole that the visitor falls into and never is heard from again.
So what happens when someone visits a website and wants to
talk to someone about a new home? Typically, the factory will have someone get
the lead and give it the sales rep that covers the viewer’s area. Then the rep
decides which builder will get the lead based on where the inquiry came from.
Then an email is sent to the builder who contacts the
prospective new home buyer and schedules an appointment to meet them which,
hopefully, will lead to a new home sale.
In a perfect world, this system should work to close sales
for both the builder and the factory but something happens to complicate things
almost from the beginning. Here are some of the
areas where things tend to go wrong which opens the door to that black hole:
No place to ask for information. That’s right
still many modular home factory websites that don’t make it easy for the
prospective home buyer to find or ask for information. There is no contact form
and in a lot of cases, no email contact to write to; just an 800 number.
Someone loses the inquiry. I know what you’re thinking;
there is an email from the prospect and possibly a phone message that prevents
this from happening. Again you would be wrong. I have witnessed everyone from
the factory owner to the receptionist forget to write a proper message when the
call comes in and by the time it makes it to the sales rep, the message has no
urgency. Emails and completed contact forms are ignored if the prospect isn’t buying “right now” or it comes from an area where the factory has no builder.
The prospect is left hanging in the wind and never hears from anyone.
Few factories demand loyalty from builders. I visit hundreds
of builder websites a year and it always amuses me that some builders list 3 or
4 modular home factories on their website and they all build the same type of
home. HUH? Many sales reps are reluctant to give a lead to a builder that will
immediately shop the prospect to all competing factories. I can’t blame them as
the factory owner or management has never demanded loyalty from the builder.
Builders are not great at long distance relationships. Even
if the prospective buyer is only a mile from the builder’s office, most
builders are reluctant to pick up the phone and call for an appointment. Buyers
should be calling them, not the other way around. The builders remember the
last 10 “leads” the factory gave which led to time wasted and no sale and don’t
put much effort into leads anymore. However they complain if one of the 4
factories they can buy from doesn’t send them leads.
Factories don’t want to be sued. Here is a little secret that
factory owners and management know but hope the new home buyer doesn’t
Factories try to be suppliers of materials only and hold the builders at arm’s
length so that if the builder messes something up on his or her end, the
factory will not be part of a lawsuit. Sometimes this works but not always.
This is what happens when a factory doesn’t work to learn all about a builder
before they authorize them and doesn’t demand loyalty for the builder. This is
a touchy subject and one that must be addressed by our industry. So when a lead
is sent to a builder, in most cases the modular home factory sales rep will not
be allowed to follow up with the prospect as it invites an implied relationship
with the builder that doesn’t exist.
Some of the reasons that leads fall into the black hole are
normal human nature but others need to be looked at in the bright light of
reality and solutions found.
