CentriWebTo follow up display home visitors without losing them, capture every visitor’s details on a tablet at the door, including where they’re at with land and finance and whether they agree to hear from you. Sort them by readiness the same day, send a personal thank-you within 24 hours, call within the week, and keep in touch monthly with the ones who aren’t ready yet. Keep it all in a shared CRM so nothing depends on one consultant’s memory or mobile.
Display homes cost a lot to build, staff and run every weekend. The visitors who walk through are some of the warmest prospects you’ll ever get, because they’ve given up a Saturday to look at your work. This guide sets out a simple process for an Australian display centre, from the front door to a signed contract.
Why display home leads go cold
Most builders don’t lose display visitors to a competitor’s better home. They lose them to silence. The usual reasons:
- The visitor book is half filled in. A first name, a scrawled mobile number, no email, nothing about what they’re after.
- Weekend visitors are forgotten by Tuesday. Saturday was busy, Monday is catch-up, and by midweek nobody remembers which couple loved the alfresco.
- Everyone gets the same treatment. The couple with a titled block and finance approval gets the same generic email as the family doing their first lap of the display village.
- Details live on a consultant’s phone. When that consultant leaves, so do the leads.
- Visitors see several builders in a day. The builder who follows up first, with something useful and personal, is the one they remember.
None of these need more visitors to fix. They need a better process for the ones you already have.
Capturing visitors at the door (with consent)
A tablet sign-in at the entry beats a paper book. It’s faster to read, it can’t be smudged, and it can send the details straight into your CRM so nobody has to type them up on Monday. Keep the form short. Your consultant fills in the rest during the conversation.
| Field | Why it matters |
|---|---|
| Name, mobile and email | So you can actually follow up |
| Do you have land? (Yes, looking, not yet) | The biggest sign of readiness |
| Where are you at with finance? | Approved, talking to a broker or not started |
| When are you hoping to build? | Tells you how hard to work the lead now |
| Which estate or suburb? | Checks you build there and helps match designs |
| How did you hear about us? | Tells you which marketing brings people in the door |
| Marketing consent tick box | Separate, unticked, saying what they’ll receive |
The two legal pieces
First, marketing consent. Under Australia’s Spam Act, ACMA’s guidance is that marketing emails and texts need consent, must identify your business and must include a working unsubscribe. ACMA also says you can’t send an email or text asking for consent, because that message is itself marketing. So ask on the form, while they’re standing in front of you.
Second, a collection notice. If the Privacy Act applies to your business, which it generally does once annual turnover is over $3 million (and to some smaller businesses too), Australian Privacy Principle 5 says you need to tell people certain things when you collect their details: who you are and how to contact you, why you’re collecting the information, who you usually share it with, and that your privacy policy explains how to access it or complain. A short notice on the sign-in screen with a link to your privacy policy covers this neatly. The OAIC’s small business page explains who’s covered.
This is general information, not legal advice. Check ACMA and the OAIC for the detail, or speak to your lawyer if you’re unsure.
Sorting visitors by readiness
Every visitor should leave the display with a bucket next to their name. Three are enough:
- Ready: land owned or settling soon, finance approved or underway, wanting to start within about a year.
- Warm: looking for land or talking to a broker, a year or two away.
- Early: just starting to look, no land, no finance conversation yet.
The consultant sets the bucket and adds a one-line note straight after the conversation, while it’s fresh. Something like: “Block in Stage 4 settling March, broker meeting next week, liked the 28-square single storey, wants a bigger laundry.” That note is what makes the follow-up personal.
The questions are the same ones you’d use for any new home enquiry. Our guide to qualifying new home enquiries covers them in more detail, including how to ask without it feeling like a test.
The first 24 hours
Send a thank-you on the same day, from the consultant they met, by name. A short text works better than a formatted email for this. Make it about them, not your current promotion.
For a ready visitor:
“Hi Sarah, it’s Mark from the display at Banksia Ridge. Thanks for coming through today. I’ll send the floor plan for the 28-square design with the bigger laundry tomorrow. Are you free for a quick call Wednesday to talk about your block?”
For a warm or early visitor:
“Hi Tom, Mark here from the display today. Thanks for stopping in. I’ve emailed you our checklist for buying a block, which might help with the land search. Shout out if any questions come up.”
If they didn’t tick the marketing box, keep your messages to what they asked for, like the floor plan they requested, and don’t add them to campaigns. If they did, include your business name and an easy way to opt out in any marketing message.
The first week and first month
After the thank-you, the rhythm depends on the bucket.
| When | Ready | Warm | Early |
|---|---|---|---|
| Day 1 | Thank-you text from the consultant | Thank-you text with something useful | Thank-you text with something useful |
| Days 2 to 4 | Phone call to book a site visit or sales meeting | Phone call to ask how the land or finance is going | Email with your design range and price guide |
| Week 2 | Meeting held, next step agreed | Invite to a finished home or the display again | Nothing, unless they reply |
| Monthly | Not needed, they’re in your quote process | Personal check-in from the consultant | Short update with genuinely useful content |
The phone call matters most. A text is easy to ignore. A friendly two-minute call from the person they met, asking about their block, is not. If they don’t answer, leave a short message and send a text saying you called.
Once a ready visitor has a quote in hand, they move into your quote follow-up process. We cover that separately in our guide to following up a quote, so we won’t repeat it here.
When a consultant leaves or is on leave
Display consultants change. People go on leave, move to another display or leave the business. If the leads live in a personal phone or a notebook, they leave too.
- The CRM owns the contact, not the consultant. Every visitor goes into the shared system from the sign-in tablet, with notes and history.
- Use a business number for texts. Messages should go out from a number the business controls, so replies don’t disappear when someone hands back their phone.
- Set leave cover in advance. Before a consultant goes on leave, their open visitors are reassigned to someone else, with a short note on each.
- Hand over properly. When someone leaves, the new consultant sends a short, honest message: “Mark has moved on, I’m looking after your file now and I’ve read his notes about your block.”
Visitors should never have to explain themselves twice.
Measuring it: visits to appointments to contracts
You can’t fix what you don’t count. Track three numbers for each display, each month:
- Visitor groups captured. How many groups signed in, compared with how many walked through. If the gap is big, the door process needs work.
- Appointments booked. Site visits and sales meetings booked from those visitors.
- Contracts signed. Traced back to the visit, even if it took a year.
Break them down by consultant and by “how did you hear about us”. You’ll quickly see where people drop out. Lots of visitors but few appointments usually points to slow or generic follow-up. Lots of appointments but few contracts points to the quote and sales stage. Compare your own numbers month to month rather than chasing someone else’s benchmark.
Where to start
- Replace the paper visitor book with a short tablet form, including a marketing consent box and a collection notice.
- Agree your three readiness buckets and make the consultant set one before the visitor leaves.
- Write same-day thank-you texts for each bucket that consultants can personalise in a minute.
- Put every visitor into a shared CRM with an owner, a bucket and a next follow-up date.
- Count visitors, appointments and contracts each month, by display and by consultant.
Most of this runs in a shared CRM with a tablet form feeding it, and our CRM setup work for builders usually starts there. If you’d rather not build it yourself, PreBuild is our partner for builders and trades in construction, and handles the fast reply, the trust-building and the follow-up through to a signed contract.