Dan Wilson Homes: Striving to Be Unsurpassed in Customer Satisfaction

Dan Wilson Homes (DWH) is dedicated to turning its clients’ dreams of a new home into reality through the company’s valued quality approach. The Texas company prides itself on building homes of exceptional quality and design, which its customers value for years. Due to this commitment DWH has managed not only to maintain pre-recession sales levels, but also actually set a company record, even as many of the nation’s residential and single-family builders have been heavily impacted by the collapse of the housing market.

“While most companies were floundering in late 2010, we did $15 million in sales, our best year ever in terms of both sales and profitability,” states Dan Wilson, president and founder of DWH. “We are first and foremost a custom home builder. We build custom homes and it’s our innovative designs that set us apart from many of our competitors, as well as the size of the homes we build. We build high-end homes from 3,000 square feet and up.”

From a head office in Lubbock, Texas, the company has become a driving force in the area’s residential development for a decade. “I started the company in 2001 and we’re so proud to be celebrating our 10th anniversary,” says Wilson. “Even though we have grown a lot as a company, we are still a family company. My wife is the treasurer and my son is vice president.”

Building a Reputation

In order to pull off its large-scale homes with a full-time staff of just seven core employees, DWH relies upon association resources – such as the West Texas Home Builders Association, Texas Association of Builders and the National Association of Home Builders – and its network of loyal and dedicated subcontractors. “Many of our subcontractors only work with us,” asserts Wilson. “We work with subs who have been in the industry for 20 or more years and we have really solid relationships with them.”

Over the course of the past decade, DWH has built homes throughout the greater Lubbock area for clients expecting an individually tailored and designed home that balances dreams with budget limitations. “Customers come to us because of the quality of our construction and because of our approach to our customers,” says Wilson. “Not only are the materials we use different from what many of our competitors use, but we have been doing this a long time and we maintain a totally different customer care position than many of our competitors.

“Many customers have experienced the stress of building a new home, and as a company we are committed to not allowing this process to become stressful,” continues Wilson. “We have a client right now who is an orthopedic surgeon and I have met with him many times at nine o’clock at night or on Sundays, because that’s when he has the time to meet.”

Customer satisfaction is the DWH’s primary concern, even more so than profitability, because the company understands that comes naturally after clients experience the company’s 70 years of combined experience in construction and customer service. DWH’s superintendents are committed to providing a high level of attention to clients, and an even higher level of attention to the finished product.

“My philosophy for every home we build is to build it as if it were my own family moving into it,” attests Wilson. “We have an interior designer on staff who works with the clients to choose color schemes and we also have an architect on staff to handle all of the floor plans and design. It’s really a turnkey operation and we like to say we’re customer friendly, but also fairly priced. We may not be the most expensive guy in town, but we aren’t the cheapest either.”

One-on-one Approach

The company’s emphasis on affable customer service has been a key factor in DWH’s longevity and continued success, despite national home prices in freefall. Wilson affirms, “Our primary concern is to always have fun with the customer when we’re building a home, while letting them know how we make sure to stay on top of our work, stay on top of the schedule, and stay on top of the budget.

“At the end of the day, everything culminates into one thing: customer referrals,” continues Wilson. “Referrals are what keep our business going. In the national landscape of things, the housing market really took it on the chin, which is why our referrals have become more important than ever. I would say 90 percent of our business comes from client referrals, and we have had many customers for whom we have built more than one home and it’s because we make sure to really hold the customer’s hand throughout the entire process. We will work 24/7 if need be.”

Having sold 43 homes in 2010, DWH has no intention of slowing down. “We’re building an 11,000-square foot home and we also are in the middle of building a 7,400-square foot Mediterranean-style home,” reveals Wilson. “In 2007, we remodeled Texas Tech University’s old Chancellor’s home, which was a 1938 home that was completely remodeled and added onto; it was really a landmark home for us. In the coming months we’ll be starting up work on a new home to be built on the site of an old municipal golf course.”

DWH is preparing for steady growth, and in the near future Wilson hopes to see a bit more national recognition of such efforts and more optimism in the news coverage of the national economy. “The media is so apt at spreading doom-and-gloom, but that kind of coverage glosses over the fact that there are areas of the country and hard-working companies that are finding a way to make it work,” laments Wilson. “In the next couple of years I think we will continue to dominate the custom home market in our area of Texas and I only see good things in our future because of our good reputation. We have worked hard to become different than the competition and our client base knows that.”

Walking clients through every step of its consummate, stress-free home-building process, Dan Wilson Homes is dedicated to making all clients dreams come true.