GuildQuality

Remodelers Advantage is an internationally-acclaimed business improvement and peer group organization exclusively for remodelers. They teach practical, proven, and profit-generating strategies to remodeling professionals that are interested in developing exceptional businesses — while still having enough time at the end of the day to enjoy the fruits of their labors.

I am a believer in this organization. The companies I know that rely on Remodelers Advantage Roundtables tend to be the leaders in the industry. They dominate Remodeling Magazine’s Big 50 Awards, and are regularly anointed Remodeler of the Year by national publications and their local associations. And those accolades are well-deserved — not only are these remodelers among the most profitable in the business, but they are also leaders in service excellence.

The president of Remodelers Advantage, Victoria Downing, offered to extend invitations to our membership to participate in their forthcoming seminars and workshops. These workshops are great for remodelers and custom homebuilders.

Administrative PowerMeeting — June 2008 — San Diego
Production PowerMeeting — June 2008 — Philadelphia
Building and Managing a Winning Sales Team — November 2008 — Baltimore

To register or to find out more about these events, visit the Remodelers Advantage website, or call them at 301-490-5620.

P.S. Remodelers Advantage also has an excellent newsletter filled with weekly bite-sized “PowerTips” for improving your business and leading a better life. Visit their newsletter archive, or sign up to receive it.

Next week, GuildQuality will be in Washington, DC as a sponsor of the Remodeling Leadership Conference. Each year, 50 exceptional remodelers will be inducted into Remodeling Magazine’s Big 50. In the words of Remodeling Magazine, these leaders possess “top-notch business acumen, outstanding customer service, a financially strong foundation, and exciting systems.” I was thrilled to learn that 8 of this year’s award winners rely on GuildQuality for customer satisfaction surveying.

The theme of this year’s event is The Color of Money: Green and the future of remodeling. I love that through Green Building, one can do well by doing good. It pleases me that a remodeler who practices sustainable building techniques is creating a better built home and helping to preserve a healthy unbuilt environment. And it especially pleases me that the green remodeler earns a premium for his or her thoughtful business practices, and can even enjoy savings wrought from efficiency and forethought.

I have long felt that what motivates one to go green is the same kind of thing that motivates one to deliver the best possible customer experience: it is a belief that, in the long-term, doing the right thing will bring the greatest success. Remodelers that practice service excellence are not only serving their customers’ interests, but they are earning greater recognition and higher margins. They are doing well by doing good.

Yes, its that time of year again. We are thrilled to announce the official 2008 Guildmaster Award Winners.

Guildmasters differ in their types of work, but all have a lengthy track record of superior customer service. These Awards were based upon a review of over 40,000 customer satisfaction survey responses for nearly 600 building and real estate professionals nationwide.

To be eligible for an award, a GuildQuality member, a Guildmember if you will, must have achieved a recommendation rate of 90% or greater and at least 70% of their customers must have completed a customer satisfaction survey. For those eligible, additional criteria deemed indicative of outstanding customer service was used to generate the final list of Award winners. This year, this process produced 102 Guildmasters!

GuildQuality Founder and President Geoff Graham says,

GuildQuality’s mission is to elevate the building and real estate profession to a stature commensurate with its importance in our lives. A tremendous part of that involves equipping home builders, remodelers, and developers with easy-to-use tools to monitor and improve the quality of their service. But we also take every opportunity we can to celebrate excellence when we see it. These 102 Guildmembers have demonstrated their commitment to exceptional service, and we’re honored to be able to recognize them.

Rachel Foster of Atlanta based Construction Ahead, Inc., one of only six companies to have ever been awarded the Guildmaster with Highest Distinction Award in back to back years says,

“being honored with Guildmaster Awards enable us to instill the additional confidence and affirmation potential and referred clients need when making their decision to engage us as their contractor” The critique we receive from GuildQuality truly gives our company the tools we need to monitor and uphold our mission statement, “Construction Ahead retains satisfied clients for life.”

Congratulations 2008 Guildmasters. You’ve all made it through some very tough criteria. Recognition of your achievements are very well deserved.

Click here to view the complete list of this year’s recipients.

Click here to read the press release.

We are very excited to announce that, this week, the Projects & Surveying section of your account received a major upgrade. Some of the highlights are:

- A simplification of the projects and surveying section. Things are easier to reach.

- A global search at the top of each page allowing members to search by customer, address, phone number, etc..

- Tools allowing members to not only communicate with users on projects, but also with our surveying team (see above image).

- What we call “survey transparency”; a way for members to see when each survey attempt is taking place.

- Brief Video Tutorials to guide you through every facet of GuildQuality’s surveying and reporting system (courtesy of Member Service Director, Erin Rosintoski).

Kudos again, to the GuildQuality Engineering Team for their outstanding work.