Quality-minded builders, remodelers, developers and contractors rely on our customer satisfaction surveying to help them provide exceptional service

In advance of undertaking another major enhancement to GQ’s reporting system, Rob and David invested some time in a bunch of “little things.” They pushed these enhancements on Friday evening. Here are two of the bigger things that were on their list:

Remember Me. If you select the “remember me on this computer” checkbox when you login, you’ll immediately login without having to type in your username and password. Also, if you share a link from your account with another one of your users, they will go straight to that page if they have their “remember me” box selected — and if they don’t, they’ll go to the login page and land on your link after they provide their username and password. You can test that out by clicking on this link to a forum post about these enhancements.

Survey Response View. In a recent release, we dramatically improved the survey user interface for your customers, but we also inadvertently made it a little tougher to see all the project details. We corrected this with Friday’s release. So now, both your customers and you have an improved user interface on the survey view.

There’s a list of other smaller things (relating to permissions, required survey questions, project information editing, and overall system performance), and you can read details about all of them here.

Yesterday, by way of Engadget, I came across an article by Todd Bishop of the Seattle Post-Intelligencer about a leaked 2003 email from Bill Gates. In the email, the leader of Microsoft describes his own painful MS user experience and challenges his team to do better.

Gates’ email begins with “I am quite disappointed at how Windows Usability has been going backwards and the program management groups don’t drive usability issues” and winds up with “The lack of attention to usability represented by these experiences blows my mind.”

The end of Bishop’s article concludes with some very recent comments from Gates about that email. Gates’ response was what really caught my attention. He didn’t sputter or make excuses or talk about how far they’ve come since then. He simply replied:

“There’s not a day that I don’t send a piece of e-mail … like that piece of e-mail. That’s my job.”

So the wealthiest and arguably most successful businessperson in the world describes his job as “Customer Experience Advocate.”

Ever since I read The Road Ahead many years ago, I’ve had a tremendous amount of respect for Gates (even with my misgivings about Microsoft’s ability to deliver an adequate customer experience). But this recent declaration on the eve of his retirement raised him up another couple notches in my estimation.

Pay your new employees to quit, and the folks that stick around will be the truly committed. I stumbled upon this story about Zappos via Signal vs Noise.

After about a week at Zappos (the $1 billion internet shoe sales company), new employees are well into the immersion process. They are working their tails off and starting to drink the juice. That’s when they get “the offer.” The company offers them $1,000 to quit.

Bill Taylor, original founder of Fast Company, writes about this galvanizing policy, as well as Zappos culture of commitment to the customer experience, in a brief article on how the shoe company has become blazingly successful.

Over the last couple years, I’ve gotten to know Tim Faller of Field Training Services. By coincidence, FTS was featured alongside GuildQuality in a recent Remodeling Magazine article. Tim is the go-to guy for “education, training, and one-to-one consultation with managers and field personnel.”

We don’t have any field personnel so I can’t personally speak to the value he brings to building companies, but a great number of our members have used his services: Conner Remodeling & Design, Encore Construction, Jeff King & Company, and the list goes on and on.

Your folks in the field are the face of your company. They are production, sales, and service all rolled in to one. If you see that some of your team is dragging, or you feel like your people have some opportunities to improve, you may want to call Tim. Regardless, I encourage you to attend one of his seminars at the IBS or Remodeling Show.

I just noticed this January 2008 article from BuilderOnline about how folks are reacting reacting to the market. The article leads with Charleston-based Guildmember Dan Buffington of Buffington Homes talking about how the tough market has enabled him to be more selective and demanding of his subs and helped him to increase quality while reducing his construction cycle by about 50%.

In anticipation of sending a membership-wide survey about trends in the industry, I posted a question to the LinkedIn “Answers” forum. My question: “If you could ask 2,000 homebuilding, remodeling, and real estate professionals a question (or questions), what would you ask?”

The LinkedIn audience is made up of zillions of business folks from all over the place, so I anticipated getting some great questions about the market, marketing, and strategy. I received a few of those, but I mostly received vitriolic challenges to home builders, remodelers, and developers to improve quality and professionalism. Here are a few examples:

• What happened to QUALITY? My home and several other’s in the area are less than 5 years old, several different builders. Just after a couple of years, we noticed nail “pops” which we are all told are “normal”. My parents home is 60 years old with NO pops. We are not talking cheap homes by no means. Hiring remodeling professionals to cover these mistakes and other “small but annoying” imperfections leads to worse situations. Where is the quality?

• Do you really care about customer satisfaction?????? I see too many people in this and other arenas who are just worried about what they put in their pocket and not about delivering value.

• What can be done to insure that the average consumer is not working with a crooked builder or contractor? Today, especially, the phrase, “Let the Buyer Beware”, is a reality. I find people that have been affected by Builders and Remodelers that are not legitimate constantly. How can we as a country correct this problem?

• As a consumer, I’m saying to these professionals “I don’t trust you” or “How do I know what you SAY is true?” A home is the most important physical possession that most people have. The decision to buy or remodel one is significant. So, in light of market conditions, and the general distrust for home “contractors”, I think the question is “What will you do to earn my trust?” What written document defines your commitment? Will you make yourself open to my inquiries (i.e. references, testimonials, etc.) What is your long-term commitment to me?

This vitriol reflects a sad reality: nationally, around 63% of homeowners would recommend their building or remodeling company.

The current average among all of our Guildmembers is 91.4%. If you are a Guildmember that’s performing at this level, you might think, “Hey, that’s great! I am doing way better than just about everyone else in the industry.”

Well, it is great, but you’ve still got a big problem. Prospective customers think the industry is filled with unprofessional incompetents. And that perception of the industry tarnishes your reputation. Your team must not only deliver an exceptional customer experience, but even before you get that opportunity, you must teach your prospective customers how and why you are different so that they’ll give you the chance.

I can’t imagine how difficult our own sales process would be if a significant majority of our prospects started their relationship with us expecting to have an unpleasant experience. Not only would that skeptical customer be harder to please in the long run, but their anxiety would negatively impact the price we could charge for our services.

So I am a firm believer in the idea that a rising tide floats all boats. And it’s why our mission is to elevate the profession to a stature commensurate with its importance. Once prospective home buying, building, and remodeling customers everywhere are beginning their relationship with the expectation that things are going to be great — and the industry is fulfilling that expectation — we’ll come up with a new mission. But until then, that’s what we’re working on every day at GuildQuality.

GuildQuality has been giving out the Garcia Award once a quarter since the start of 2007. Each of our employees votes on who they think most embodies our core values: Integrity, Stewardship, and Improvement. I’m pleased to announce David Strandburg as the winner for Q4 2007.

David was the core developer for our Marketplace application. He really took ownership of building an efficient and elegant code base. A key component of the Marketplace is its powerful search capabilities. David introduced the use of the Zend_Search_Lucene class and since its inception it has worked very well. He is also responsible for working with other employees in the company when issues arise. Everyone speaks highly of his responsiveness and accuracy in solving the issues that they bring to him.

If you see David around town, be sure to congratulate him. I also hear he likes REI, beer and fudge rounds (and corndogs).