MORE EMPATHY: Guiding customers through the homebuying experience and beyond
PROFILE: A conversation with Jamie Kipp, Director of Customer Experience
At Minto, our promise of home is one that offers more ways to live better: whether it's the pride of owning a first home, the accomplishment of streamlining and downsizing or anything in between. To deliver on this promise, we are committed to providing the best possible customer experience for our homeowners – supporting them through the buying process and the many stressful decisions along the way.
We caught up with Jamie Kipp in our Ottawa office, the Director of Customer Experience for our Ontario homebuilding team, to talk about her role elevating customer experience and what it means not just to sell a house but to guide our customers through their homebuying experience and beyond.
Can you tell us about Minto’s approach to customer experience?
What I think is special about Minto is that we use our years of experience to guide and educate homeowners through a process that naturally comes with high emotions. Our journey map, website, dedicated Customer Experience team members and communication while homeowners await their keys all are geared towards helping set expectations during a process that is very much out of their hands, always evolving, and that comes with a lot of emotional and financial investment.
What is the difference between Customer Service and Customer Experience?
Customer service is a basic standard of action, calling someone back, or providing a requested document. Experience is about feelings and sentiments that the team brings to the homeowners and when possible, creating moments of awe and demonstrating you understand the ups and downs of the process. You can offer great customer service by being perfectly transactional, but when you care, listen, and understand people, I believe you offer an experience to them.
With your role, you likely encounter various challenges. How do you approach problem-solving and keep your cool in challenging situations?
I like to start by looking at a problem from multiple perspectives, it’s amazing how often there are multiple ‘truths’ in a situation, especially when feelings are involved which they often are in something as personal as places for people to live. My approach is to understand where everyone involved comes from, especially our homeowners, and if possible, to understand why things went as they did. The cause can sometimes inform how best to resolve something, however, in my experience, it's more important to focus on what to do next. To help be a calm and objective resource for our homeowners, I love walking my dog, bouncing ideas off my colleagues, playing video games or cooking with my family. That and make sure I celebrate even the little successes with my team and the people who make a difference to our customers, everyone from our sales representatives, design consultants to our construction and warranty team members.
How do you empower your team to be listeners and providers of an experience vs. a service?
It has a lot to do with trust and making work a safe space to make some mistakes. I believe that you learn way more when you make mistakes. Open communication empowers employees to own up to their mistakes and authentic communication often leads to finding solutions. We act as guides and educators for our homeowners and let them benefit from those of us that know the evolving homebuilding journey.
One thing we really focus on is trying to minimize surprises for homeowners. I like to say that we are warriors against uncertainty. Our goal is to provide service certainty when there are so many external uncertainties like interest hikes, supply chain issues, labour shortages, etc. We try and provide certainty where certainty is possible. We do what we say we will do. For example, when you order that white cabinet, you can be sure you are getting that white cabinet - and if you don't, we'll make it right.
We aim to be proactive with information and tips, to help our homeowners feel secure and know what to do next. When we get more questions than complaints, we know we are doing our job right.
You mentioned Minto is different than other builders. Unpack that a little bit.
I am living in my second Minto home. When I say Minto is different, I mean it because I am a Minto homeowner myself. Minto doesn’t just sell you a house, we design and build the community, whether it is a suburb and neighbourhood, a high-rise tower or something in between - we guide you. We have people on our team who are knowledgeable about different aspects of real estate. I'm always in awe of my co-workers who specialize in one aspect of homebuilding whether it’s product design, roof detailing, colour theory, contracts, or scheduling. We also have a repository of knowledge in the homeowner resources section on our website; we're constantly trying to let our homeowners benefit from being a Canadian business in this industry for nearly 70 years. We want to share that expertise with our homeowners, not just get them through the process.
What are some of your favourite moments?
Between the time someone buys a home and moves in, they may have children, get engaged, married, get a promotion, and many other milestones that we are privileged to witness. I love getting to know people through their own personal journeys and that wonderful moment when their new home or investment just 'feels' right to them.
My team and I love going out on the site, shadowing design center visits, and meeting with the homeowners. Sometimes we have park parties, and we hand out snacks and just spend time chatting with homeowners. When we can’t meet our customers in person, we enjoy talking to them on a video call and seeing their faces, or on a call if that's their preferred method.
One of my favourite things to do is to make sure homeowners feel heard by reading their feedback, changing process we have in place to reflect their feedback, and then letting them know that their voice has been heard and we have made a change because of them.
How do you incorporate feedback from homeowners?
There is complete transparency at Minto when it comes to feedback. Not just a checkbox; we look at the good, the bad and the ugly. Feedback is incorporated in many of our meetings and all teams at all levels talk about and have access to the homeowner survey feedback when they come in. We look for patterns in the data and pay close attention to the written comments and sentiments our homeowners express, in combination with the numerical score the customer has provided us.
We all have our little secrets for staying energized at work. What's your go-to tip for maintaining a positive attitude?
Don't be shy about taking a few minutes to breathe, to process. A lot of people assume if you’re at your desk, you need to be typing, if you’re on site, you need to speak to someone or inspect a home to be ‘productive’. If I’m always reacting, I may not be considering other perspectives. I generally approach a situation thinking everyone is trying their best, and if that’s the case, the focus can remain on solutions vs. dwelling on negative thoughts. Stopping, breathing, and just reminding yourself of that can often provide clarity and help us come up with the best solutions to help our homeowners.
If you could give one piece of advice to someone aspiring to become a leader like yourself, what would it be?
Communicate, communicate, communicate, and let colleagues, bosses, subordinates know what you like, what you find challenging or frustrating. It's authentic and if it's done in a professional way, it can help you and your team focus on your strengths. Not only will your work speak for itself, but how your work impacts other people’s work and experiences will too. To do so, you need to communicate frequently, professionally, and honestly, and understand how your work impacts others.
Can you recall a funny or lighthearted moment that happened on the job, something that still brings a smile to your face when you think about it?
There are a lot of moments, but one of my favorite memories is when I first started at Minto, I was working for the Land Development team, who are responsible for everything outside of the house or tower we're building which includes the municipal approvals, sewers, streets, parks, utilities, streetlights, trees, grass, and so on. I was with that team for 7 years in two different positions and loved it, however, a project management opportunity came up within the company and I had finally made the big move to a new department. On my second day in that new position, I got some news from home. I walked into a meeting with my boss, sat down and suddenly had to tell her that my husband and I had just received news we were going to be adopting a baby boy, our future son, and that I needed to go on maternity leave starting in 2 weeks; on the second day of the new job! I was so nervous, but my new boss hugged me and told me we’d make it work. I felt so supported and grateful for the accommodation of my specific circumstances, respected as an employee and a person.
What's the part of the job that makes it rewarding for you?
I love that in Customer Experience, you get to hear about the good, the bad and the ugly. There's no hiding from what's going on, and you get the opportunity to do something about reoccurring pain points. What I find most rewarding is working with my amazing team and hearing the unique perspectives and innovative solutions they come up with. I genuinely love it when someone comes up with a new idea and I can help them develop and deliver it as a resolution for one of our homeowners.
What is one word you would use to describe Minto?
When I think of Minto, I think of the word “empathy”. We are always pivoting, adapting to, responding to and listening to homeowner needs. When you care, listen, and understand people, you offer them the best possible customer experience.