In today's housing market, consumers are more educated and aware of their choices than ever before. No longer can a builder offer a small range of model options in hopes of fulfilling a purchaser's appetite for home customization. However, with more options available for selection there comes a greater challenge in terms of effectively integrating the consumer into the overall selection process. The selection process doesn't need to be complicated, time consuming or costly to be effective, by switching to a consumer centric options selection program you will find that you not only enhance the customer's experience but at the same time drastically improve the efficiency of your sales center and team.

The majority of sales centers today feature the same typical concept and design, walls upon walls of options stacked as high and as far as the eye can see. Through this tangled mess, consumers are expected to actively seek out their desired material and then are forced to envision how the product will tie in to their newly purchased home. On top of this the whole experience is usually limited to a few brief hours. In all, the current options selection process is flawed to say the least.

So how can the overall options selection process be improved? For starters, ensure that the sales center is organized in a logical and flowing manner. Ensure that cabinetry for the kitchen is located in close proximity to the counter tops. This allows your design center visitors the ability to easily compare and contrast different materials quickly.

Consumers usually are better able to relate to a product when it appears in an environment that they are familiar with. For instance, a shower, toilet and basin sink would all be more appealing if they were laid out in a traditional bathroom arrangement. The key is to mimic or mirror real life situations wherever possible, this ensures that the consumer is at ease and is free to make a confident decision.

As mentioned earlier, one of the major problems faced by new home purchasers is the lack of time they are presented with when making their option selections. There are only a finite amount of hours in any given day. Given that, design center teams must find creative ways to lighten their work load while still giving consumers ample amount of time to make their choices. For many the solution is to hire on additional staff to meet the increased demand. For others larger, more complex design centers are built. But the solution is actually a lot less complicated than you think. For creative way to solve this problem we have to look no further than our own computer.

For the past several years home furnishing stores and big box retailers have offered their consumers the ability to browse their catalogue online before ever visiting a physical store. Via the companies website visitors are offered a wide range of services including but not limited to product comparison, customization and most importantly comparative pricing. More recently builders have begun to step into this online world offering virtual options selections to their consumers.

Minto, a large home builder from Ottawa is one of the first builders in the industry to make the jump to online options selection. By making their options catalogue available online, Minto's consumers have the ability to select and review their options online before ever entering a physical design center. The benefits to this are two fold, one it drastically reduces the amount of time spent in the design center by purchasers and two it gives consumers ample amounts of time to make their selections. The end result is that consumers feel empowered and since they made the selections themselves are more inclined to spend the extra money on options purchases.

What makes this process so successful is the integration between the physical and the virtual. Ensure that your online content helps to facilitate the actual sale. Give your consumers access to the information they need and let them make their own informed decisions. When it comes time for them to visit the design center, spend the time finalizing details and closing the sale. A healthy integration between the two must always exist because in the end purchasers still need to touch, feel and test the products they will ultimately end up buying.

All of the strategies discussed above are fairly simple to implement and carry a long way in terms of creating a consumer centric options selection program. In the end purchasers must be given an adequate amount of time in order to make an informed decision. The end goal is to ultimately put the power in the consumer's hands making it their own personal purchasing decision. If you take the time to centralize the process around the consumer you will be handsomely rewarded with increased options sales and your design center staff will thank you for it.

About the Author

Frank Guido, President and CEO of Aareas Interactive, has been at the forefront of merging technology and sales strategies in such as Real Estate CRM & Interactive Kiosks for more than 15 years.