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

On the first of October, we announced the Call for Entries for the 2010 Guildmaster Awards. As I write this, 78 members have applied so far.

Members may apply for consideration for an award by visiting the Guildmaster Award section of their account.

Alison Sturm of Attention to Detail Home Remodeling posted about this event in the GuildQuality LinkedIn Discussion Group:

In Atlanta, on November 5, the National Association of the Remodeling Industry will be hosting an informative set of classes tailored for those whose small businesses focus on services in client’s homes.

There will be at least 3 classes focused on new ways to market yourself, 3 classes focused on protecting yourself & your company, as well as a host of other useful topics. You may sign up for a half day or a full day of classes, all of which offer continuing education credits, and plenty of networking opportunities with remodelers, designers, builders, & trades.

Read more and sign up here.

We’re researching alternative accounting systems for GuildQuality with plans to make a switch within the next three months. The various service providers we’re contemplating have been helpful in responding to requests for information or clarification about their various features. But their counsel is, of course, biased.

I’m interested in learning how other businesses like ours do things. I couldn’t find any clear guidance online, and I don’t personally know any executives with other web-based subscription services.

For the last five years or so, we’ve relied on Basecamp (a 37Signals product) as our internal project collaboration tool. Of all the services we use, Basecamp has a business model and billing requirements that are most similar to our own. After reading this article describing a new initiative by 37Signals CEO Jason Fried showed up in my Twitter feed, I thought I’d ping Jason asking him what they use. I posted a message to him on Twitter: “Can you share which software 37signals uses for accounting?” Six minutes later, I got my answer.

In the last week or so, Angie’s List enabled non-members to provide business reviews. As a result, we’ve added them to the list of review services our members can have appear after their customers respond to a survey. You can read more about this functionality here.

Worth noting, unlike the other sites we link to, you can’t add an Angie’s List icon to your Profile Page, as publicly accessible company profiles are not available on Angie’s List. So while GuildQuality can help you encourage customers to talk about you on Angie’s List, we can’t yet link to an Angie’s List profile page of any kind.

Click here to manage which sites your customers see after they’ve completed a survey.

Earlier this month, Professional Remodeler published their 5 market leaders from each of the 20 major markets in the United States. Of the 100 companies recognized by ProRemodeler, 21 are GuildQuality Guildmembers.

I’m a firm believer that bigger is not necessarily better. One of my favorite Guildmembers limits his capacity to no more than 7 custom homes per year. Nevertheless, size is a meaningful indicator. In today’s world, it is difficult to grow and sustain a large service business without running a professional operation — and it is especially difficult to do so without also delivering a great customer experience.

I’m grateful that so many of these accomplished businesses allow us to be a part of their strategy for success, and we’re proud of the work we do for them.

I am scheduled to give several talks at industry events in the next couple weeks:

Breakfast with Remodelers Advantage at the Indianapolis Remodeling Show

Thursday, October 29, 7:00am, Indianapolis Convention Center

Victoria Downing and I will be giving short sales presentations about GuildQuality and Remodelers Advantage Roundtables. These sales presentations are specifically for owners of remodeling or custom building companies with greater than $1 million in annual sales.

While the event is designed for companies that have not yet joined either GuildQuality or Remodelers Advantage Roundtables, we absolutely welcome our existing members, the press, and our wonderful partners. Let us know if you’d like to be added to the registration list. Once we hear from you, we’ll forward you the room location.

Bucks-Mont NARI Education Day

Thursday, November 5, All Day, Perkasie, PA

The good people at Bucks-Mont NARI (near Philadelphia) have invited me to be the afternoon keynote speaker at their annual education day. I’ll be giving a presentation on the “Past, Present, and Future of the Remodeling Business.” The talk focuses on the evolution of the industry — particularly its professionalism, regulations, technology, and the marketing strategies of those that are leading it. I’ll also make some predictions for the near future based on the trends we see emerging among consumers and our members.

The morning of the event, I’ll be leading a workshop entitled “Thriving in the New Reputation Economy.” In it, we’ll explore the intersection of customer service and social media.

Click here to register for Education Day.

Custom Builder Symposium

Saturday, November 7 & Sunday, November 8, San Diego

I’m giving a talk (on Saturday) and leading a workshop (on Sunday) on social media and customer service. In the talk, I’ll explore some of the best practices of people within and outside the industry. The workshop that follows will be hands-on — people will leave the session with a Twitter account (and at least 1 follower!), and an understanding of how they can leverage social media and consumer review sites to deepen their connections with customers and prospects. Click here for more information about this year’s Custom Builder Symposium.

We’re happy to report that one of our Guildmembers, WindowPRO of Cleveland, Ohio, has been named a 2009 Dealer of the Year by Window & Door magazine.  Recognized for Excellence in Innovative Thinking, WindowPRO has operated as a family-owned business for 80 years while continuing to reinvent itself through the decades.  In the most recent transition, WindowPRO began carrying the Marvin line of windows and doors and re-branded the company.

Jake Zahnow, President of WindowPRO, shares some terrific advice for owners — “Sometimes you’ve got to burn the ships and say we’re going in a new direction, all based on the belief that what’s in the future will be better than what’s in the past.”

Click here to read the article.

This morning, the WSJ published an article entitled On The Internet, Everyone’s A Critic, But They’re Not Very Critical. The essence of the article: “when consumers write online reviews, they tend to leave positive ratings: The average grade for things online is about 4.3 stars out of five.” This article echos a recent YouTube question from their blog: “if the majority of videos are getting five stars, how useful is this system really?”

Visit Yelp, Kudzu, or Google Local and you’ll see this for yourself. Certainly not all experiences are 4.3 stars out of five, so where are all the unhappy folks? The truth is that, despite what you might guess, it is the moderately UNhappy people who are least likely to express an opinion. These are the normal and polite people who, having nothing nice to say, choose to remain silent.

When I started GuildQuality, I assumed the opposite would be true — that unhappy people would be more eager to give feedback. In actuality, when we survey on behalf of the builder, remodeler, or real estate developer, we observe that the best companies have both a high recommendation rate and a high response rate.

An obvious red flag for a business is a low recommendation rate, but another subtler warning sign is a low response rate. That means that your customers no longer care about your company.

This is why internet based ratings are so high — the relatively small percentage of people that provided them are generally passionate about the experience they received. They care so much that they pulled up their browser and published some of their feedback for the benefit of the entire world. If their review is negative, they are likely to be so extremely unhappy that they have become vindictive. This is a tiny minority of customers — even among mediocre businesses. But the majority of internet-based reviews are from people who are ecstatic about their experience — so much so that they will “do the company a favor” by giving some feedback. But most people simply express their opinion with silence: They don’t care enough to make the effort.

This latter group — the silent majority — fills in the void and gives you an accurate picture. These are people like you and me, and the kind of experience they had (but didn’t rate on Google Local) is the kind that all customers are most likely to have.

As the CEO of Yelp said in the WSJ article, “A broader range of opinions can give consumers a more complete view of a business.”

Whether you are a business looking to understand how you are doing, or a consumer deciding whether or not to patronize a business, the most reliable performance report will describe the experience had by all consumers — not just those that provide online ratings. That requires a high rate of participation in a survey of a significant group that is representative of all customers.

At GuildQuality, we try to keep it simple: We encourage every Guildmember to survey every customer, and we have a high response rate to our surveying. That maximizes the value and utility of the member’s survey feedback and performance reporting. And if they choose to publish their performance summaries, then that gives consumers something much more meaningful than a simple 5-star rating.