Frequently, we as consumers enter into business transactions jaded by our previous poor customer service experiences. All I’ve ever heard about building a home and working with contractors are nightmares and tales of woe. With Garman Homes, these preconceptions disappeared with every interaction. Each and every interaction has been incredibly smooth and all Garman employees have treated us like we were the most important customers they had. After this experience I don’t think I’ll ever purchase a new home if it wasn’t built by Garman. I know this is lengthy but fewer words wouldn’t have done the experience justice…
The Backstory
On a whim my husband and I put our house on the market…it sold in six days and had to close within a month…we went on a 48-hour house shopping binge landing us in Stonegate. We found a house we liked by another builder, and tried to buy it…but received poor service. We continued to try to buy anyway because we wanted the house but then we had an idea…
The Fairytale
We googled Garman Homes, found their website, after about 3 minutes on their website we called our realtor and asked her to set up a meeting with Garman. They give $1000 to Habitat for Humanity for every house they sell, why wouldn’t you want to buy from them?
The NEXT day, we were greeted by the contractor Chris, the sales manager Alaina and the OWNER Jim! We were given a tour of a recently framed structure that could potentially be our new home. The tour was animated, amusing and well organized. They had never built this model before and we had no idea what it was really going to look like when finished.
When we left the meeting, we felt like we were treated right, certainly in contrast to the previous experience. We were treated like people not as a sale, an important Garman difference. Before we even got home, we knew we would be purchasing a home from them, even though it meant we would be "homeless" for a month.
Keep in mind there were still available, finished homes in the neighborhood that could have closed on the same day as our previous home. Due to their incredible customer service as well as their commitment to doing the right thing for their customers and community we elected to put ourselves in a temporary lurch just to have the opportunity to work with Garman.
The entire building process felt like a fairytale, it was nothing like what many of our friends have struggled through when building. Garman was extremely conscious of any errors on their part, often taking responsibility before we had a chance to notice. Chris always greeted us with a smile and was happy to answer our questions even if we showed up unexpectedly (as we often did). Even the Wells Fargo staff made the lending and closing process seamless.
After a month of living with friends, we have now been in our brand new Garman home for two weeks and we continue to receive phenomenal service from the Garman employees. They haven’t discarded us after closing as many builders would have done. They continue to check on us, stop by and follow through with unwritten promises of small things they would fix after we moved in. They have honored all agreements, both oral and written. I don’t know what their actual business motto is but "Do the right thing" seems like the perfect way to sum up our experience.
My husband and I have truly enjoyed our Garman Homes experience and would recommend to anyone if they ever have a choice, to choose Garman. Thank you, Garman Homes for raising the bar for customer service!
Lesley
lesleyrcoe@gmail.com
