A day after graduating from high school, Bill Frey began his home-building career as a laborer. Over the next 30 years, he would climb his way up the construction and corporate ladders to become vice president of customer care for one of the largest homebuilders in the United States. Now he’s putting his vast experience in customer relations to work for other homebuilders as an AVID Advisor.

Before joining AVID in 2009, Bill was the corporate vice president of customer care for John Laing Homes, where he led the company’s customer relations efforts in markets throughout California, Colorado, Arizona, and Texas. As part of the senior leadership team, he helped John Laing Homes align the company’s vision with resources, programs, and policies to deliver an award-winning customer experience for more than 2,500 homebuyers a year.

Before joining John Laing Homes in 2006, Bill steered the customer service operations for St. Joe Towns & Resorts (formerly Arvida Homes), one of Florida's largest private land owners. In his role as director of warranty service, he continually set new industry standards in customer service. While working on the 4,800-home SouthWood project, he achieved a 90 percent “willingness to recommend” customer satisfaction rating.

Now, as an AVID Advisor, Bill works with homebuilders that have tried to improve the customer experience on their own but have hit a plateau.

“The builders I work with understand the value of creating an exceptional home buying and home owning experience,” Bill says. “They know the marketing value of satisfied customers making referrals.”

Over the years, Bill has implemented a lot of strategies to improve the customer experience. Some were simple ideas, such as instituting weekly phone calls from the construction superintendent to the homebuyer to streamline communications. Others were more complex, such as creating an employee certification program for warranty coverage. In every case, the focus has been on setting customer expectations and then exceeding them.

As an industry veteran who has worked in the trenches and senior management, Bill has hands-on experience in all levels of the home-building  process. “I find it most rewarding when I’m working with employees who have great potential and are open to learning new ways to achieve customer delight,” he says.

One thing he learned early in his career is the importance of measuring results. “I learned that just by measuring something it can improve,” he says. Employees realize that if something is important enough to measure, it must be integral to the company’s success, he reasons.

“Surveying buyers is the best way to understand which part of the process is causing the most pain,” he says. “I enjoy working with customers because they will let you know right away if they are enjoying the experience or not.”

Purchasing a new house is often a stressful event, and Bill thrives on helping homebuilders reduce anxiety for their buyers. “The many years of delivering homes to all types of customers has taught me that it is all about relationships,” Bill says. “If you can develop a great relationship, the customer will overlook the inevitable issues that come up.”

The challenge  for builders is to continually dissect the home-buying process and make the necessary changes to improve the experience, Bill says. “That’s where AVID has been able to help so many homebuilders.”

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