All About the Customer Experience: How the Clayton ELEVATE! Conference Surprised Us

Last week, members of the Braustin team were incredibly inspired while attending the Clayton ELEVATE conference in Nashville, TN.

Every year, Clayton Homes, one of the most far reaching and diversified off-site home manufacturer’s in the country, hosts a conference for independent retailers who have achieved a certain level of their industry goals.

But, unlike in previous years, the conversation focused very little on sales, numbers, strategies, or any of what a manufacturer would typically want to emphasize when gathering together the people responsible for selling a large majority of their product.

Instead, we at Braustin were thrilled to see the entire event centered around creating a world-class customer experience for new home buyers. The Clayton Homes executives, conference speakers, and even independent retailers invited on the discussion panels revolved around what they have been doing and what can be done to bring about a stunning customer experience throughout the home buying process.

Creating an Excellent Customer and Team Member Experience

Invited to speak on one of these discussion panels was Braustin’s own Alberto Piña, where he was given the opportunity to share the vision behind the creation and continued growth of our company.

Titled “Disruption”, the panel was originally meant to demonstrate aspects of Braustin that have unsettled the status quo or caused ripples in the manufactured home industry’s stagnant model.

But what everyone soon discovered was the panel discussion—the entire conference in fact—had very little to do with a sudden, staggering industry disruption, and much more to do with how vital it has become to embrace evolved consumer expectations in the one-click, Amazon Prime, instant quote, e-deposit era we find ourselves living in.

Alberto’s discussion on the panel highlighted three points of focus for the Braustin team: Transparent pricing, communication, and convenience, but all these elements are part of the larger goal of creating a company both customer and team members want to work with.

“For us it came down to… the experience for the customers and the experience for the team members. Other than our industry and some furniture, you just can’t imagine e-commerce without seeing the price, and that’s one of the things we led with was upfront, transparent pricing,” Alberto says during the discussion panel, “And once we got rid of the haggling and the negotiating, we were able to focus more on the experience and making it fun and exciting to buy a home. Which in turn made it fun and exciting for our team to help people buy a home.”

An artist at the Clayton Elevate conference sketched Alberto during the “Disruption” panel discussion he participated in.

Customer Experience is More than Price

Knowing that price was only one factor in providing an incredible customer experience, we also developed the Braustin App to make the paperwork intensive side of buying a home less overwhelming and tedious for everyone involved.

“Paperwork… was a pain point for both us and the consumer and so we spent a lot of time, money, and effort on building the software that takes this massively complicated process and breaks it into little, simple chunks. And it allows them to scan and upload everything from their smart phone.”

But although the mobile app has had great reception with our home buyers, some customers still prefer the use of email or text messages for communication and this flexibility is a crucial part of providing the convenience and ease home buyers need during an otherwise stressful process.

Braustin was founded on the idea that home buying didn’t have to be painful, and, as Alberto says on the panel, “A lot of that comes down to listening—asking customers what do they want?”

Improving for our New Home Buyers and Existing Homeowners Every Day

We learned so much at our time with Clayton Homes and are proud to work with a company as laser focused on providing excellence to their customers as we are. We walked away with so many ideas, new perspectives, and are completely fired up to continue refining our business to better serve our customers—both old and new.

And as much as we appreciate the support of companies like Clayton, we are especially thankful to the customers who took a chance on Braustin and allowed us to serve and guide you through the home buying process.

As we look at further enhancing our customer experience, we welcome your feedback! Please leave us a comment on Facebook or send us a message through our website, your thoughts are invaluable to the future of Braustin!

Enjoy A couple of Fun Pictures from the Conference