Persimmon announced it is introducing a ‘customer care improvement’ plan, which caused shares to fall on Thursday.
The house builder announced the measure after mounting criticism regarding the quality of its properties.
As part of the plan, Persimmon said it would offer home buyers the option to retain 1.5% of the value of the property until any faults found were resolved.
On average, the company said that would average £3,600 around per home.
Dave Jenkinson, Chief Executive Officer of Persimmon, said:
“Persimmon is listening hard to all of its stakeholders and we hear the message that we need to continue to raise our game in customer care. The initiatives we have already announced, including the action taken in the new year to deliver greater accuracy of anticipated moving in dates by adopting a more targeted approach to the phasing of sales on specific sites and the improvements and investments that we have made in our customer care team, operations and technology over the last few months are beginning to take effect. We are now accelerating the pace of change through the introduction of a contracted retention which will give homebuyers far greater satisfaction at the completion of the purchase.
“Moving into a new home should be a positive experience enhanced by all the benefits of a new build that is designed for modern living. We are determined that the experience is not overshadowed by teething problems and providing a homebuyer’s retention is an important step towards achieving this.”
Roger Devlin, Persimmon’s Chairman, added: “This is a first among the UK’s large housebuilders and I hope will lead the way in change across the sector. This move, and the urgency with which we will introduce it, is a clear and unambiguous signal of cultural and operational change at Persimmon, putting customer care at the very centre of the business.”
Shares in the FTSE-100 company (LON:PSN) are currently down -3.25% as of 12:07PM (GMT).
