Customer gripes prompt Taylor Wimpey build quality drive

Taylor Wimpey is to focus on build quality and consistency after a fall in its customer satisfaction scores.

The housebuilder said customers had identified quality as one of their top three considerations when buying a house, along with service and delivery timing.

In a trading statement issued today, chief executive Pete Redfern said: “We have, and will continue to invest, in improving our offer across each of these areas, and measuring that improvement.

“During 2019 we invested in new programmes that are specifically focused on enhancing build quality and increasing our production capacity and we also followed through on our investments in 2017 and 2018 in other areas around customer service and process. The build quality programmes include additional resources on site including greater depth of site managers, quality managers and directly employed finishing trades, plus the introduction and implementation of a set of national build quality standards.”

Redfern also highlighted the fact that Taylor Wimpey had maintained its construction and sales specification, despite cost pressures.

However, he expressed his disappointment that the company’s ‘would you recommend’ score in the Home Builders Federation survey fell below the 90% level earlier in the year but added: "We continue to see this measure of initial customer satisfaction as important and are pleased that recent performance is back at a five-star level."

The comments came as part of a trading update in which the company said its 2019 results would be in line with expectations. Redfern described the UK housing market as “resilient” thanks to strong demand, low interest rates, competitive mortgages and the government’s Help to Buy scheme.

“Forward indicators have remained at healthy levels albeit we have seen some increasing customer caution, particularly in the higher-priced markets of London and the South East, as a result of the ongoing political and economic uncertainty,” Redfern said.

The company’s total order book, excluding joint ventures, represents 10,433 homes (2018: 9,843) as at 10 November 2019.The order book stands at around £2.7bn (2018: c.£2.4bn), an increase of 12.5%.

Meanwhile, the business has tripled the number of apprentices it employs in the last four years to an all-time high of 640, after identifying the shortage of construction skills as a “key pressure” for the industry.