Leveraging Customer Satisfaction Using BIM: House Builders' Perspective

The UK housing industry is growing from the recent recovery of the global and the UK economy. More homes are currently required to be built putting a strain on resources. Over the last fourteen years, customer satisfaction has been a key performance indicator for the UK government and industry bodies to determine the quality and service that is being provided by housebuilders. As a result, housebuilders and professional bodies over these years have strived to improve the level of after-sales customer satisfaction. This has led to increased customer satisfaction during the recession. However recent drive for increased productivity levels has reduced customer satisfaction levels; suggesting that the industry needs to use innovation to provide higher levels of customer satisfaction while maintaining productivity. BIM is a new way of working that enables digital representations of the physical and functional characteristics of a facility. BIM intends to supply usable information throughout the lifecycle of a project. The housing industry is beginning to utilise BIM in certain aspects within the business. The implementation of BIM into customer care departments could be the innovation the industry so desperately needs to enhance customer satisfaction. This paper explores how after-sale customer satisfaction is evaluated by the UK housebuilders and their opinion on how BIM can be used to enhance customer satisfaction.