GuildQuality

The GuildQuality Guildmaster Awards celebrate exceptional customer service in the building industry. This year (our 5th year) we are excited to recognize 138 home builders, remodelers, contractors, and real estate developers for their history of exemplary service.

To identify the award winners, we reviewed thousands of survey responses from their customers. Following are a few representative comments pulled from the customer feedback of this year’s winners:

Everyone at Ivey has been nothing short of amazing…We look around at our finished house and can’t believe how much Ivey helped us to make it “ours”, having picked out every element we truly love.

While it was wonderful that they communicated well, finished early, and stayed on budget, ultimately the most satisfying part of this was the quality of the finished product, which we feel is outstanding.

SummerHill, Adam and Barb were outstanding. It was a great experience and one I would highly recommend. They worked with us to get into a home we wanted…stayed with us every step of the way.

Of the 2010 Guildmasters 13,000+ survey respondents, 96% would recommend their builder, remodeler, or developer to a friend. That performance is around 25% higher than the average for the industry, and an accomplishment that puts them among the healthiest and most enduring of building businesses. Congratulations to the 2010 Guildmaster Award Winners!

To learn about this year’s Guildmaster Award Qualifications, visit the qualifications page of our website or contact us with any questions.

Almost two months ago, we increased the number of complimentary listings available to members from 1 to 10. Thereafter members have been publishing examples of their work and uploading photos like crazy. Since early March, we’ve climbed from maybe a few dozen listings with a couple hundred images to more than 160 examples of work and homes for sale with over 1,200 pictures.

Here are a few of my favorites:

New wood shingles on an historic house in Sparks, MD

Beautiful timber framing examples from churches, homes, kitchens and restaurants

Historic renovations from in and around Evanston, IL

Click here to view all of them, and here to add additional project profiles to your company profile.

This month, we officially launched our partnership with James Hardie to provide customer satisfaction surveying and performance reporting for their Preferred Remodeler Program.  This relationship is an extension of GuildQuality’s strategy of partnering with the leading manufacturers in the industry (other partners include Pella and Wellborn, with more to come this year).

As a benefit of the Preferred Remodeler program, all JH-installed jobs will be surveyed (unless the remodeler opts out).  When surveys are complete, an email will be sent to the business owner enabling them to see how they performed and follow up as appropriate.  Those remodelers who become full GuildQuality members will be recognized on our website and on the Find a Remodeler section of the JH site. 

In the coming weeks, we will share the results of this partnership.  We are delighted to be working with James Hardie, and look forward to spending time with  members of the Advisory Board and executive team next month in Chicago.

Last week, I had the pleasure of visiting Las Catalinas, a new beach town in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica (check out their website and follow them on twitter).

Judging from the few days I spent in and around Las Catalinas, I’d venture to guess that Costa Ricans do a lot of important things very differently than North Americans. I thought you’d find some inspiration (or at least interest) in a couple of the differences. (more…)

In the fall, we sold our house in Virginia Highland in Atlanta, and moved about a mile away. As much as I love our new neighborhood, I miss our old neighbors. So I don’t mind in the least when the post office fails to forward mail to our new home — I get an excuse to visit the old street.

This time around, I was pleasantly surprised to see a Calhoun Properties sign in the yard. It looks like our old home’s new owners were wise enough to choose a Guildmember to help them with their remodeling project — and not just any Guildmember, but the very first Atlanta-based company to join GuildQuality, way back in 2004.

There are a bunch of small-world connections with this house: The new owners both graduated from my tiny alma mater; They were classmates of Erin Rosintoski (who recently left GuildQuality after five years to pursue a graduate degree at Georgia Tech); They were married on the same day (different year) and in the same city as my wife and I; Her father lives in a house remodeled by one of our very first GuildQuality members, Phillip Smith General Contractor; and Phil was the person who recommended Lawson Calhoun to the new owners (both Phil and Lawson are in the same 20 Club).

Lawson pulled up while I was chatting with my neighbors, and he and I had a chance to catch up. The new owners of my old house are lucky (and smart!) to have chosen such an excellent person for their remodeling project.

Beginning tomorrow morning, you’ll be able to view performance reports based on Closing Date and Survey Response Date, rather than just Ripe Date. You’ll also be able to view Month-to-Month trends in customer satisfaction, rather than just Quarter-to-Quarter or Year-to-Year. If these are enhancements you’ve previously requested, thanks first for suggesting them, and thanks second for your patience.

At the risk of being overly technical, here’s a brief description of how dates impact our trend reporting. Historically, all of our trend reporting has been driven by a survey’s “ripe date”. Because we survey at contract, mid-way through, after closing, and long after closing, each customer often has a bunch of different milestone dates. If, for example, a member’s survey is supposed to launch 30 days after closing, and closing was to occur on March 1, then the ripe date — the date that the survey is supposed to launch — is March 31. If the member provides us the customer information after the ripe date has already passed, the survey goes out immediately. Because people often got us their customer information after the ripe date had passed, we chose to have our trend reporting be driven off of the ripe date rather than the actual date the survey launched. If you’ve gotten this far, either you understand what we mean when we say “ripe date” or your head hurts. Fortunately, Closing Date and Survey Response Date are pretty self explanatory.

We recently heard some feedback from FBN Construction on the value of surveying multiple times during the client relationship.   Here are some excerpts:

Improving the Client’s Experience

“By surveying multiple times (at contract, mid-way through and shorty after completion), we have become more aware of our behavior and have the opportunity to improve in order to enhance the client’s experience.  There is great value in being able to see consistent areas that need to be improved and to focus on changes that make our clients ‘raving fans’.”

Better Communication

“As a result of several mid-way through surveys, it has been brought to our attention that several of our clients did not have a full understanding of our budget process.  With this information, we have developed and implemented new processes to help client’s understand the budgeting process better.”

“The surveys have shown our clients that we are dedicated, committed and interested in improving their experience with our company.”

GuildQuality Surveys

GuildQuality provides surveying at all points of the client relationship: sales prospects, at contract, mid-way through completion, shortly after completion, and long after completion.  Contact support@guildquality if you’d like to learn more.

We’d like to hear other member’s feedback.  Please comment below.