This year’s Tarion Awards of Excellence, a gala event that honoured customer service excellence in Ontario’s new home industry, received coverage in both the national and provincial press, with articles in The National Post, The Globe & Mail, The Toronto Star and The Toronto Sun.  Listed below are the headlines from these articles:

The National Post: Tarion Warranty Corp. hands out customer-service awards to Toronto-area builders

The Globe and Mail: Tridel and Tribute take top honours

The Toronto Star: Tridel and Tribute take top honours - Hayhoe Homes and Lapico Homes also win

The Toronto Sun: And the winner is… New home customer service is celebrated at the Tarion Awards of Excellence

As the articles reported, two Toronto area builders took top awards. Tridel won in the high-rise category for the second year in a row, and Tribute Homes took top honours in the large volume category. Tribute was also recently rated number one in the inaugural J.D. Power home-builder satisfaction survey.

Hayhoe Homes of St. Thomas won the medium volume category and Lapico Custom Homes of La Salle took home the small-volume category award. 

Greg Gee, the President and CEO of Tarion, stated that “Today’s consumers have high [service] expectations and Tarion’s awards recognize those builders who foster strong customer relationships, particularly through high-calibre service programs.”

The articles point out that Tridel has taken an innovative approach to customer service with “MyTridelHome.com” – a web site that allows homeowners to access all their agreements and records, as well as a round-the-clock way of reporting customer concerns. 

In a similar fashion, Tribute’s has created a “Total Service Policy” to promptly address customer needs, including a 24-hour instant-service response when homeowners call with a problem.

Hayhoe Homes, a builder of single-family homes and condominiums in the St. Thomas, also prides itself on exceptional customer service. They employ a full-time Service Manager who ensures that even non-emergency service calls from homeowners are responded to within 24 hours.

For Anthony Lapico of Lapico Custom Homes in Windsor, no customer problem goes unheeded. In fact, if a customer calls with a concern, he drops by personally to assess the situation and, if necessary, calls in the appropriate trades people for immediate action. 

Maintaining a strong customer focus is a vital component of success for today’s new home builders. As Mr. Gee said, “The days are long gone when a builder could simply hand over the keys to a new home on closing, and walk away. In today’s market, consumers have high expectations, and leading home builders are focusing on ‘the customer experience’, including all aspects of after-sales service.”