Hover: Our Virtual Exterior House Design Tool

June 4th, 2020 BY First American Roofing

From our mission of honesty, integrity, and professionalism to working with local community causes, our goal at First American Roofing is to provide our customers with the best possible service. Part of that customer experience means improving efficiency and reaching an end result that our customers love. 

 

Improving efficiency means finding the best ways to save time, money, and energy to achieve the same great results. During this time of staying at home and social distancing, we have found opportunities to improve internal processes to allow efficient, streamlined ways to serve our clientele. 

 

One way we have done this in this new landscape is fully utilizing our virtual exterior house design tool, Hover. A virtual design program like Hover can take an in-person evaluation and turn it into a virtual experience that can sometimes be even better. Hover allows customers to design their new exterior house design before it lands in our hands. 

How the Exterior House Design Tool Works

 

Without ever stepping foot inside your home, or having to meet in person, our homeowners or one of our crew will need to take just 8 photos of your home’s exterior on a smartphone. Then, the Hover app turns those images into a 3D rendering of your home which can then be used to create measurements and to build a virtual design. 

 

With the homeowners able to peruse through assorted exterior colors, textures, and designs they can do their own visuals to create their dream home without any outside influence. The app allows them to swap out siding, roofing, doors, windows, shingles—you name it. 

 

Once their 3D rendering is complete, the system will also give accurate dimensions of their home which allows us to provide a fully detailed estimate of the exterior project. Watch the video below for more information on the 3D rendering process. 

 

How the Hover Tools Help us as Contractors

 

Making Hover part of your regular process as a contractor means you get a lot of benefits beyond just helping your customers design their own home. Features that make the lives of contractors easy include “to-the-inch” measurements of every single surface area and the fully interactive 3D renderings. Plus, being able to build out a full property portfolio that contains all information including address, design ideas, and a free photo storage library for reference. 

 

This app works for residential single and multi-family homes, townhouses, apartments, and commercial properties, which can also integrate to build out 3D models for ongoing projects. Lastly, we can integrate with any of our existing processes all while being able to easily serve our customers virtually without in-person meetings. Now that’s efficiency! 

HOVER mobile app

The Benefits of Virtual Design Tools

 

In a time where our world has changed to no-contact meetings and remotely working, virtual design tools have surged in order to keep projects running smoothly and so that we can continue doing the important work we need to do for clients.

 

For contractors, virtual design tools can actually improve communication between their clients by including homeowners more heavily in the design and planning process. Not to mention the ease of being able to bring the projects with them remotely no matter if they are in the office, the car, or visiting a client’s home—the app holds all project details in one handy place. 

 

For homeowners, the benefit of being able to have a hands-on experience of designing their own exterior remodel gives them the power and confidence to get the exact look they desire. They can change their mind as many times as they want, all while getting a visual tool to see what each color or texture siding they can have. Maybe they had one idea in their heads of what they wanted, and the Hover tool was able to support their design or guide them in an even better direction. 

 

Lastly, of course, is to continue with no-contact service for our customers during stay safe orders, and for customers who feel most comfortable with no in-person meetings. This time has allowed us opportunities to fine-tune these virtual meetings and design tools for our clients. 

 

The benefits go even beyond the need for social distancing, but it can also save a lot of time and money spent arranging schedules and driving to locations for a design consultation or to make any changes to a design. We love being able to provide this service to our clients now and moving forward. 

HOVER design tool

As we navigate this new landscape of customer service, we don’t want to skip a beat. We are so happy to work with you to plan your home project or repair. We are at your full disposal when it comes to navigating Hover, planning a budget, or checking out financing options, and anything related to getting your home in tip-top shape. 

Keep in mind we are also entering peak storm season so be aware of how your gutters are working, and know we are available for gutter and gutter guard repair and replacement. We are also there for you if you incur any storm damage or suspected storm damage. Simply give us a call (608) 247-5494 or fill out our contact form for a FREE estimate.