Interview with a Sales Advisor
This month we sat down with Sales Advisor Rebecca Napton, to find out about her role and what customers can expect from the Sales team when they buy a Charles Church home.
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Hi Rebecca, great to meet you! Could you tell us a bit about yourself? My name’s Rebecca, I’ve been a Sales Advisor for just over 3 years. I really enjoy it – this is my dream job, I love selling houses! As for hobbies, I’m a qualified swimming coach at Malmesbury pool, and I also love gardening, travel and cooking. My signature dish is tiramisu! I’m currently based at our sister company Persimmon's Backbridge Farm development in Malmesbury, which is very convenient as I’m a local so I’m always more than happy to tell our customers about the area. |
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What does a typical day in your role look like?
On a typical day I’ll come in, open up the sales office and water the flowers. Then I’ll check any voicemails and emails, and have a look in the diary to see who’s coming in that day.
No two days are the same, because you’re either selling, choosing Select Options, organising site visits…there are so many different aspects, you have to be a bit like an octopus! Every Monday I go and visit the site to check on build stages, and on the days when we have customers coming for site visits, we get our safety gear on and I lead them to the site.
A lot of the job revolves around the sales progression. First of all comes the sale - which I get a huge buzz from – but then the next step is getting the buyers to exchange. We’ve recently had our first exchange here in Malmesbury which was very exciting! Along with this process comes a lot of time management, and managing the expectations of the customer. Sometimes there are delays related to aspects totally out of our control, such as the weather, but forming good relationships with our customers means that we can do our best to work with any changes.
Could you briefly talk through the Sales process – from the moment someone sees a plot they want online, how do you help them?
First of all they’ll need to book an appointment to come and visit the Sales Office, where we can provide them with more information about the site and answer any questions they might have. After they reserve, we spend a good amount of time going over the plans and explain that there will be two site visits with the site manager, followed by a New Home demo at which point the customer will know when they’re completing. These visits are obviously down to the site manager, and any health and safety regulations, but we do try to be flexible.
We also talk to the customers about the ways they can personalise their homes with our Finishing Touches, which is always a fun part of the process. And around this all, we schedule regular calls and updates right up until completion.
So it sounds like a lot of support is given throughout the process. How involved would you say the Sales Advisors are at each step of the journey?
I’d say quite a lot. We want their customer journey to be as positive as possible, and encourage them to come to us for any questions or issues they might have in the first instance. In the first two weeks the customers are very busy, instructing their solicitor and arranging the mortgage, which we help them with. Then, when the solicitor has received the contracts, there is a period of 42 days (or 52 days if you’re doing Help to Buy) which is when you’re looking to exchange. If a customer uses our recommended solicitors and mortgages, the customer can more or less sit back and we’ll do the chasing.
We try and give updates every 10 days on the build, and check-ins regarding things like services fees.
Throughout the journey we really do get to know the buyers, and sometimes if they do need some extra help we are happy to do this to – for example if they are struggling to upload documents.
What piece of advice would you give to anyone looking to buy a new home with Persimmon?
I quite often recommend customers to look at video tours of our homes online, to really give you a flavour of what the homes will be like – it can be hard to visualise something when you’re looking at a building site! The videos are really useful tools.
We also have great connections with other members of staff in the business, so if a customer did want to have a look inside a particular house and there was a show home of that house at a nearby development, usually we can make a call and arrange that. Essentially – if there’s something you’re wondering about, just ask! More often than not we’ll be able to make it happen.
Finally, what’s the most rewarding thing about your job?
Buying a home is such an important, exciting time in a person’s life, and there’s nothing better than the feeling of sharing in their excitement when they finally complete. My last two customers each gave me a big hug! My goal in life is to make a difference, and if I can make this experience a happy one for them, that means everything. If I’m bubbly and enthusiastic too, then it rubs off on them, and everyone enjoys the experience even more.
There’s also the three-part process of the initial sale, the exchange, and handing over the keys. You do become quite close to customers in the process, and end up sharing in their joy which is wonderful.
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