An Insight into the Snag Problem

Like many other companies, After Build have been using a marketing tool called ‘pay-per-click’ for some time. For anyone who’s not familiar, ‘pay-per-click’ refers to Google Ads. Specifically the websites that are advertising to you at the top of your search results.

Depending on what you tell Google about your company, the advert for your business will be returned to a browser when they type in a connected search term. For example, someone looked for ‘Excellent New Build Customer Care’ would surely come across our outstanding service offering!

As part of a regular review, we looked at those search terms being typed in to find us. I knew that there was going to be a lot about snags because it was the ‘Snag’ campaign that had been generating results. But I think you’ll find the results pretty interesting, like we did.

‘Company to snag my house’ …. ‘How to deal with my home’s snags’ …. ‘How many snags are reasonable’…. ‘Professional house snaggers’… on the list went; It was illuminating.

This merely confirms a growing trend and one that we have observed for some years: New home purchasers are ‘snag-savvy’ and (quite reasonably) aren’t prepared to accept a new property unless it’s ‘snag-free’.

All developers, (and we have witnessed the difficulties some of the major brands have suffered at the hands of the national media when failing to manage their quality control) have a snag issue when they don’t have a process in place. All too often it is the lack of suitable processes that lead to damming press headlines, Twitter campaigns and adverse You Tube content. Stories of homes with hundreds of snags, wobbly walls, drains that aren’t connected, doors that won’t open and windows that won’t close are all a result of failing to manage quality control. Sales get ahead of site and before we know it, consumers have a powerful and damming story to share with the nation. For the large developer, the share price takes a hammering and years of brand building is rubbished overnight.

Let’s agree some fair and reasonable principles. If any of us purchased a mobile phone (let’s say) and upon opening the box found that parts were missing or simply didn’t work – we would march right back to the store we acquired it from and demand a replacement.

But what if the store were to say, “well, we can get a man out to you in a week or so but in the meantime you’ll just have to use the camera bit until we can get the phone bit working!”

Not one of us would accept this – yet that’s what happens when a new home purchaser buys a property with significant problems – the only real difference being that they haven’t just spent ￡250 – they’ve borrowed hundreds of thousands.

Without question, there is no money to be saved by ignoring those crucial latter stages of quality control – it will always cost you more over the long run – in some cases that cost has almost been terminal for the business as a whole.

Can we be clear also about the definitions used in the industry – Snags are things that exist up to the point a home is purchased – and should not exist thereafter … okay most people will still accept the odd few minor points – a bit of paint needed here or a cracked tile there. But not dozens or hundreds of really serious issues. Defects are issues that arise after the purchaser took occupation and, if they are legitimate build defects reported in years 1-2 are the developer’s responsibility to remedy.

Amongst those developers who do have a process, we find they each apply a cut-off that can vary considerably from one company to another. Some allow months – this is absurdly long, and unnecessary. Some allow a generous 1 to 2 weeks and a small proportion think they can eliminate the snag problem by giving customers an hour to completely inspect the property. A word on this, if you’re giving such a short window, it should happen at key release rather than before. If you do this at say, home demo then contractors will work in the property before legal completion and could feasible create more snags.

Finally, there’s the problem of access after the customers have moved in. Assuming that you’ve been able to collate all of your snags and your contractors have agreed to resolve them, you’ll still need to arrange a lot of well-timed access for many plots all within the same months. The teams who’ll need to go may be on site or they may be working on your new phase and have genuine time conflicts based on your needs. And it’s so much harder working in a property that’s full of furniture than one which is an empty shell.

Our search results tell us that customers are becoming more aware of their right to snag their properties and it’s more important than ever for new home builders to be prepared with a robust process for managing snags, which they should differentiate from defects.

We’ve said it more times than I can count but it should be clear to property developers by now that maintaining your customers’ satisfaction at the beginning of your relationship will pay dividends for the remainder of the developer’s liability period. Conversely, allowing your purchaser to become one of many who feel the need to turn to google to solve their snagging problems will create a permanently disgruntled customer. 

Customers who find a vacuum of information where the snagging process is concerned will begin filling it with bad press and complaints so take our advice and get ahead of the curve on this one. Help yourselves by well defining your snagging procedure from start to finish so that you can lead your customers through it, not the other way around.