Ausbuild
“Salesforce has helped us adapt to the needs of this generation of buyers by enhancing the online experience and enabling us to identify what they want before they call or walk through the door.”
30%
time saved on deploying apps
Ausbuild empowers customers to build their dream homes online
Established in 1988, Ausbuild started out as a builder of spec homes before broadening its focus in 1995 to include land development. This move has given the Queensland-based business more control over where it can build and has helped it expand from building an average of 100 homes per year to building an average of 450.
Combined with the townhouses developed by Ausbuild, this rounds out to more than 1,000 projects annually. Ausbuild has used Salesforce to achieve this growth and provide a better experience for home buyers, both online and offline.
Setting the foundation for a personalisation
Salesforce was brought into Ausbuild at a time when the business was about to undergo a significant growth phase and Nathan Senti, now Head of Information Systems, had just joined Ausbuild as Head of Marketing. He championed the use of Salesforce for more insights into the business and a better way to nurture leads. Ausbuild had a previous CRM used for basic reporting while leads and opportunities were managed out of email and spreadsheets. Sales Cloud replaced all of this to provide a more complete view of the business and customers.
"It was a challenge at first to move everyone away from spreadsheets. To tackle this, we made Salesforce the source of truth for lead ownership and made it the only way to assign land to customers. We then brought more data into Salesforce to track business performance" said Senti. "It was at that point people began to rely on Salesforce and it became more than a CRM."
Ausbuild adopted Pardot next to automate lead nurturing. It set up forms on the website to capture lead data and then built out nurture journeys to maintain engagement with idle and passive leads. As leads get to the end of these journeys, the sales team can decide if they are ready to be moved forward into the pipeline. If the answer is yes, the sales team can reach out and have a personalised conversation, drawing from the information in Salesforce.
Elevating digital engagement
Ausbuild has rebuilt its website with Heroku to further streamline and personalise the buying experience. Prospective home buyers can go onto the site to search and compare different home types and then customise their favourite. This information is captured in Salesforce so that Ausbuild can better understand what the ideal home looks like for buyers.
“People are no longer doing their research as they’re walking through display homes; they’re doing this online at home,” said Senti. “Salesforce has helped us adapt to the needs of this generation of buyers by enhancing the online experience and enabling us to identify what they want before they call or walk through the door.”
Once people are ready to buy, up to 70% are using the design options on the website to finalise their home layout. In the past, all of these plans had to be custom drawn which took three or four hours from the initial sketches to completed CAD plans. Customers also had to come back for an appointment to review them. Now, the whole process is done in a matter of minutes and Ausbuild can provide live pricing. This has naturally created a higher sales conversion ratio.
In the future, Ausbuild plans to add new features to its website like the ability for customers to create their own quotes. The details will flow through to Salesforce where the sales team will finalise quotes using CPQ. The business also plans to build new apps to manage HR and safety data. It estimates a 30% time savings on these and other development projects based on using Heroku.
“Building on Heroku is incredibly fast which means we don’t need to hesitate about making changes and can be progressive in our development,” said Senti.
Maintaining momentum during COVID-19
Ausbuild’s innovation and growth has not stopped during the pandemic. One of the first things it did was film virtual tours for its homes and publish these on its new website. It also doubled down on its marketing and advertising to drive a 4x increase in leads and a 3x increase in sales over May and June.
The business is now busy building these homes and seeking opportunities to expand in other areas of the housing market, like low-rise apartments. To support this growth and make work more efficient, Senti is increasing Ausbuild’s use of Salesforce.
The future roll out of Service Cloud will streamline management of maintenance and other service requests. Requests are currently managed by phone and email and there’s no way to track how things are progressing. With Service Cloud, Ausbuild will be able to increase visibility and automate workflow. It will also be able to tap into Salesforce Knowledge to respond faster to repeat questions or concerns.
Salesforce Surveys is also on Ausbuild’s roadmap and will be used to capture the pulse of the customer at each stage of the buying journey. These insights will help Ausbuild continue to improve the customer experience with a focus on trust and transparency.
“Trust is vital in our industry and we want our customers to have a positive experience and be confident in recommending us to others. That word of mouth endorsement is the best way for us to grow,” said Senti.
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