What Can Housebuilders Learn from the Automotive Industry About Customer Communication?
Buying a car and buying a house are two of the biggest purchases a person will ever make. They are both significant moments in people’s lives, involving high prices, emotional investment, and anticipation. Yet, when you compare how the automotive and housebuilding industries communicate with their customers, one is clearly in the fast lane.
Over the past decade, the UK automotive industry has embraced digital communication tools and business social messaging platforms to create a more transparent, personalised, and efficient customer experience. Meanwhile, many housebuilders still rely on emails and phone calls to reach customers at key points in their housebuying journey.
Despite sharing the same tech-savvy customer base, there is a disconnect between the two industries and their chosen communication methods. So what exactly is the automotive industry doing right? And what can we learn from them in the housebuilding industry to improve the customer journey and generate more sales?
Automotive Industry’s Shift to Video Communication
In the automotive industry, social messaging platforms designed specifically for one-to-one or one-to-many business communications are leading the way in sales, marketing and customer services. With multimedia functionality, voicenotes and video messages can easily be shared directly to customers’ phones, providing a personalised and engaging experience alongside any standard marketing communications through email, SMS and phone calls.
Video, especially, is playing a crucial role in this shift to digital engagement and is being used across sales, servicing, remote inspections, and insurance claims. Leading platforms like CitNOW have become standard platforms in thousands of dealerships across the UK.
In Q1 of 2025 alone, nearly 4 million videos were created using the CitNOW platform (reflecting an 8% year-on-year increase) and their results speak for themselves:
Car buyers rated CitNOW Sales videos an average of 4.8 out of 5 throughout 2024.
Personalised video responses can boost used car sales by 15%.
Using video can help convert 1 in 3 new vehicle enquiries into a sale.
Retailers using video are four times less likely to lose a sale, with some dealers converting up to 7 more vehicles per month thanks to video.
It’s not just sales; companies like Big Motoring World and Money4YourMotors are using video for remote car inspections to reduce in-person visits and speed up processes. Insurance providers like AutoProtect are also using video for remote inspections to handle claims to help reduce back-and-forth conversations and improve resolution times.
Same Customer, Same Expectations
The uplift of business social platforms within automotive means that today’s buyers are not only used to receiving social messages in their personal lives, but are now expecting a more interactive, personalised and visual experience when making big purchases.
But despite serving customers who are making an arguably bigger financial and emotional decision, many housebuilders are still relying on phone calls, brochure PDFs, and lengthy email chains to keep in touch with their buyers.
The reality is that housebuyers are the same people who are experiencing high-quality, structured social communications in their car-buying journey. And if automotive has taught us anything, it’s that video communication isn’t just nice to have - it directly improves sales performance and customer satisfaction.
The house-buying journey is full of moments that could incorporate video and social messaging to create a more engaging experience and improve sales performance. Sales introductions, showroom tours, and new plot releases are among the many touchpoints that can be used as opportunities to maintain interest, build buyer confidence, create impressive customer experiences, and take more reservations through to completion.
Choosing The Right Communication Tools
Like many industries, housebuilders have begun to turn towards popular social messaging apps like WhatsApp, Messenger, and iMessage when dealing with customers. Sales teams are using these platforms to share new-build development updates, property tours, confirm appointments, and quickly respond to queries.
However, the use of these platforms raises important questions about brand consistency, professionalism, tracking management and data security. Despite being a great alternative to SMS, phone calls and email, popular social messaging apps aren’t always built with business needs in mind and there are several things that should be considered before adopting these as common practice. Read here.
Today in the UK, social messaging is part of our daily lives and housebuilders should consider platforms designed specifically for business use.
Some have already taken this step. Leading brands like Redrow, Cala, and Lovell Homes are now using dedicated platforms to send regular video and imagery updates to buyers at key stages of the homebuying journey. These tools ensure messages are engaging, secure, trackable, and consistent with corporate branding - all while being easy to create from a user perspective.
As more housebuilders adopt these communication methods, the industry as a whole has an opportunity to raise the bar and meet the expectations already being set elsewhere.
Don’t Let Automotive Overtake Housebuilding
The automotive industry has already proven that social & video communications deliver measurable results: it’s efficient, transparent, and more personal. Most importantly, it’s what today’s customers expect.
For housebuilders, the lesson is clear: it’s time to take the wheel and catch up.
