GuildQuality

I thought our members would be interested in the extreme renovation/expansion my brother Vince recently completed on Sullivan’s Island, SC. Mugdock Castle is, in his words, “just your typical, everyday beach castle.”

If a Scottish explorer had discovered the semi-tropical paradise of the South Carolina Low Country in the 12th century, Mugdock Castle would be the type of fortified home he would have built there…Together with Forts Sumter and Moultrie, Mugdock Castle guards the entrance to Charleston Harbor – the most historic North American port of the Atlantic Coast.

Check out the pictures, and if they don’t satisfy your interest, you can rent the castle for a beach vacation. And if you need a Scottish mason to build a turret or a Charlestonian blacksmith to forge a dragon-headed handrail, you’ll find some qualified artisans on the Mugdock team page.

The title of this post is from a quote by E. W. Grove, builder of the Grove Park Inn, and is inscribed on a board next to the fireplace in Mugdock’s Winter Hall.

The results are in! More than 140 GuildQuality members participated in this quarter’s market predictions survey. The short answer: Most people are optimistic. For a more complete summary, check out the full report.

To view in full screen (highly recommended), click on “menu”  in the lower left-hand corner and “view full screen” below.

To read prior quarters’ summaries, click here.

The BBB has played a big role in the building business for many decades. Thousands of builders and remodelers have invested heavily in marketing their BBB accreditation. At least one of our Guildmembers has used GuildQuality feedback as part of their successful BBB Torch Award application. Conversely, some of our Guildmembers have disputed a low BBB rating as inaccurate or unrepresentative, and used our survey feedback to support their claim.

Has anyone had a similar experience to the small (and big!) businesses who are featured in this 20/20 segment? Have you suffered under a low score, only to be elevated to an A-rating after purchasing your accreditation? Has the opposite happened, wherein your score dropped when you refused to buy?

daily5Remodel is seeking your snapshots:

What’s the goal of Snapshots? To let remodeling pros peek inside the windows of their peers — and thus see some of the unique and wonderful things their peers are doing (other than performing high-quality remodeling work). It’s one thing when a third party writes about such an event or activity; it’s another when the remodeler shares the thinking behind a community service program, a marketing campaign, a team-building practice or an affirming PR coup.

Now it’s your turn. In celebration of the holidays, we invite you to share a Snapshot from your company.

d5R Readers will be voting on their favorite snapshots, and winners will receive special gift packs from Remodelers Advantage, Train2Build, and Construction Programs & Results. Submit your Snapshot to snapshots@daily5Remodel. The competition ends next week.

For the third straight calendar year, GuildQuality will serve as the preferred provider of customer satisfaction surveying for the Pella Certified Contractor (PCC) program.  Since launching the relationship in early 2009, we have signed up over 75 PCCs in 18 states and have achieved a 74% response rate across all surveys.  Click here for a list of PCCs with active profiles.

Jim Kabel, of Case Handyman & Remodeling of San Jose recently summarized his experience with GuildQuality:

“GuildQuality has enabled our company to capture, reinforce, and recognize quality in and across our team. It enables us to keep a strong, healthy balance between quality and profitability by putting quality in a very measurable position with quantitative data. It is the single best short-term measure of our success in satisfying our clients on a daily basis. I consider it integral to our business.”

So, what’s new for PCCs from GuildQuality in 2011?  Two webinars are already scheduled: one focused on best practices in surveying and another focused on leveraging social media.  And, for those who have not yet done so, we offer PCCs a 20 survey trial of our service!