Testimonial

What does your job involve?
- My job is primarily to welcome customers, and that first meeting is vital for creating a climate of trust. I really enjoy this aspect of what I do, because it means I constantly have to adapt my presentation to answer new questions and serve different types of customer.
I ask potential customers some key questions to try and pinpoint their expectations and needs so that I can understand how far advanced they are in their plans to buy and advise them accordingly. I ask questions like: Do you know the area? Are you buying to rent or buying a home for yourselves?
Will it be your main residence or a second home?
I also ask them about their budget, which is clearly a key consideration. My customers always leave with full documentation to browse through at their leisure.

What kinds of questions do your customers ask you?
- What is the price per m2? What is the useable area? Are there schools, nurseries and shops nearby? How quickly could we move in? What type of sound insulation are you offering?
Some customers seem to think that new properties are noisy. I reassure them that this far from the truth, and explain that Bouygues Immobilier uses the latest acoustic and thermal insulation technologies. As for completion times, we are committed to meeting our advertised completion deadlines, which average around 2 years.

Which fixtures and fittings are included in the price?
- To help them personalise their homes, we give our customers a choice of interior finishing services that are inclusive in the price of the property and vary from development to development. They can also select a number of options (kitchen fittings, cupboards, etc.) that are not implemented till later.
These options are not included when calculating the legal fees, and their price varies from range to range.

At what point do customers tend to make their reservations?
- If, at the end of the second meeting, I feel that the customer is ready, I suggest that we move on to make a reservation. If the customer still isn’t sure, I advise that he or she takes an option on the property and thinks it over for 2 or 3 days. Conversely, I sometimes have to ask people in a real hurry to slow down and take their time. The truth is that I adapt my recommendations to suit the individual personalities of all my customers!

What does reserving a new home involve?
- Reservations are made in our sales office, but only after I’ve answered all my customer’s questions and explained all the stages that lie ahead. I make a particular point of explaining what reservation actually achieves: that it prevents the property from being sold to anyone else and freezes its price.
The contract is then sent out by registered post, giving my customers 7 days in which to decide whether to proceed or not.

What happens then?
- Customers then have between 4 and 6 months in which to take all the necessary steps, like obtaining their loan, signing the contract in the presence of their notaire, etc. Once the reservation is made, I pass my customers on to my customer advisor colleague, who supports them though the rest of the process and helps them personalise their new home.