And the 5 star rating goes to…
Hooking you on the promise of construction quality and customer satisfaction…
HBF Star Ratings
Like many new home buyers, you have probably seen HBF Star Rating logos displayed by housebuilders around their developments and generally anywhere that prospective customers might see them and conclude that lots of stars = lots of construction quality and lots of satisfied customers.
But are Star Ratings a reliable guide to either?
Who awards them, and how?
Every year, the HBF, a political lobby group that represents around 80% by volume of the UK housebuilding industry, and the NHBC, the UK’s biggest new home warranty company, run a customer satisfaction survey for new home buyers.
A survey is sent to owners with NHBC policies around 8 weeks after they move in. Results are published annually the following year.
For their Star Ratings, HBF works out the percentage of ‘yes’ answers to one of their survey questions. The result determines the Star Rating of each participating housebuilder: 80%+ gets you 4 stars. 90%+ gets you 5. No one gets less than 4 stars.
The survey question that HBF asks in order to generate its Star Ratings is this:
“Would you recommend your builder to a friend?”
[answer: yes or no].
That is not a direct question about construction quality or customer satisfaction, so there is no direct correlation between a ‘yes’ answer and quality or satisfaction levels and yet that is what Star Ratings are used to promote.
Also, by asking the question only 8 short weeks into ownership, new owners are unlikely to have formed a clear understanding of overall construction quality or whether the customer service team will actually deliver on its promises.
Shifty statistics
HBF has published its survey results and awarded its members with Star Ratings since 2005 with almost continuous improvements year on year on this key statistic.
However, HBF’s survey design and methodology evolved significantly over that period with no indication from HBF on whether those changes accounted for the improvements as opposed to housebuilders actually making improvements on construction quality or customer satisfaction.
HBF also appears to ‘disregard’ a significant number of returned surveys each year. Why? Did those owners give the ‘wrong’ answer?
Promises v reality
So, if your experience of construction quality and satisfaction levels have failed to live up to the early promises, perhaps this will help to explain why.
And if that is the case, then we may be able to help. If you want to hold your housebuilder to account over build quality issues including chronic failure to make good on promises to put things right, our New Home Buyer Claims service is designed to help you do just that, affordably and cost-effectively.
Please contact us today to discuss your situation.
A Star (Rating) is Born: The Barker Review
In March 2004, Dame Kate Barker, an economist commissioned by the Government, published her Review of Housing Supply which included a review of the housebuilding industry.
She was not impressed by the industry’s record of low customer satisfaction levels, which she put in the following terms:
“Low customer satisfaction levels have been underpinned, in the past, by a lack of adequate customer protection and, to some extent, the approach of housebuilders. The industry needs to work hard to restore its image with customers, developing a code of conduct for new house sales that delivers fair contracts and high levels of customer satisfaction. Levels of customer service must improve.
The industry must improve the quality of customer service. Customer satisfaction levels have fallen since 2000, with only 46 per cent of customers saying that they would recommend their housebuilder (see Box 6.1). The need to improve standards applies right across the industry.” [emphasis added]
She went on to make the following recommendation backed by a threat of regulatory intervention if not achieved:
“Recommendation 32
The housebuilding industry must demonstrate increased levels of customer satisfaction:
• The House Builders Federation should develop a strategy to increase the proportion of house buyers who would recommend their housebuilder from 46 per cent to at least 75 per cent by 2007. Over the same period, levels of customer satisfaction with service quality should rise from 65 per cent to at least 85 per cent.”
And so the HBF/NHBC customer satisfaction survey was born, which led directly to the HBF Star Ratings you see today.
Fun Fact
Did you know that the very first year that HBF and NHBC ran their survey, customer satisfaction was found to be…75%. Just as Dame Barker had demanded.
But did construction quality and customer satisfaction really jump from 46% the year before, to 75% the following year? Or was it down to survey design and analysis?
It may be that quality and satisfaction have risen consistently since 2005, but HBF Star Rating logos are not in our view credible evidence of this.
We would welcome any measure that leads to improvements in the quality of the housing supply in the UK and the fair treatment of customers, but whilst we wait for meaningful regulatory reform to this effect we will continue to work tirelessly to help buyers of defective new homes get fair redress over construction issues.