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

On July 27, I’ll be speaking with Victoria Downing about how to differentiate yourself based on what you’ve actually accomplished, and rise above everyone else’s superficial chatter. Victoria is an amazing leader in our industry and a wonderful person. She can make even a guy like me sound intelligent, so I encourage you to tune in. Click here to register.

This interview will be available only to members of the Remodelers Advantage Community. If you’re not  yet a member, you should become one now.

Once again, GuildQuality is powering a Service Excellence Award for the Charleston Trident Homebuilders annual PRISM Awards. I believe the significant majority of our Charleston members are also members of the CTHBA — all of you should apply for a Service Excellence Award. The deadline for application is August 10, 2010.

Click here to download the PRISM Awards Application Package

On Friday, I signed the last of the 2010 Guildmaster certificates. If you ordered some, and have not yet received them, expect them to arrive in the next couple of day.

I received this email yesterday from Dennis Duroff, and with his permission, I’m sharing it here for our home builder members:

Special thanks to Bill Smithers of CB USA for inviting us to present yesterday to his membership.  The topic of the presentation was “Winning in the Reputation Economy”, with a focus on how high customer satisfaction scores drive profitable growth.  We were joined on the call by Chip Gruver of Gruver & Cooley, a GuildQuality member since April 2009 and CB USA board member.  Chip shared how his company uses client feedback to continuously improve, celebrate excellence, and differentiate their business in the market.  To view the recorded event, click on the embedded video below.  We had a little bit of technical difficulty at the beginning, so it will take 15 seconds to start after you hit play. 

Webinar for Custom Builders USA Members from GuildQuality on Vimeo.

HüsBand – Sister Jack

HüsBand | MySpace Music Videos

Heather, Jerrod, Mark, and I will be attending the Remodeling Leadership Conference in Alexandria from May 13 to 15. I’ll be coming up a day early for the rocking “Remodeler’s Night” pre-party at Flanagan’s Harp & Fiddle, featuring the righteous tunes of HüsBand. That’s GuildQuality member Jonas Carnemark, of Carnemark Systems & Design, on guitar.

If you’re in DC on the 12th, join us. Doors open at 7:30.

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.

Our friends at Custom Builders USA have offered to conduct a special webinar for GuildQuality members on May 11 from 1-2pm ET.   The speaker will be Bill Smithers (CEO), who will share how the CB/USA network combines the purchasing power of reputable builders to lower costs and increase service levels from suppliers.  CB/USA’s value proposition is well summarized in this short video (2.5 minutes).

We will be joined on the call by Bob Fleming, owner of Classic Remodeling.  Bob is a GuildQuality member and a founding member of CB/USA – Charleston. 

Click here to register for the webinar.

The American College of the Building Arts is dedicated to educating the next generation of building artisans. Students at the college are learning both the craft and the profession of construction.

Visit the college’s site or read this recent Preservation Magazine article, and you’ll quickly see why we’d like to support their mission. In our own ways, we both seek to elevate the stature of the building, remodeling, and real estate development profession.

The college and its students would appreciate your financial support — and they’d also benefit from some inspiration. So here’s my appeal to you:

Please tell us why you have chosen this profession!

If 100 building, remodeling, or real estate development professionals share their story (in the comments here on this post, by replying to @guildquality on twitter, or on our facebook page) before the end of March by midnight on April 1 (OK, so we’ve eliminated the deadline. Just comment already!), we’ll give $500 to the college. So please, give us your answer (no matter how brief), and ask others to do the same.

Note: I’ve reposted some comments that people have provided in other forums. I’ve tried to catch them all, but likely missed some. My apologies if I missed yours!

Jan 6 Update: The meetup will be at 5:30 on January 19 at Tempo in the Las Vegas Hilton. For more details, visit the official meetup page.

On January 19 at 3:30 in South 221, Craig Schweikart (of Constellation Homebuilder Systems) and I are giving a talk entitled “Best Practices for Integrating Technology in Your Business”?.

My portion of the session will cover how GuildQuality uses technology in both our operations and marketing. The show’s planners invited me to give the same talk I gave during November’s Custom Builder Symposium (I also gave a similar presentation at a couple of recent NARI events). I’ll be updating it to include some of my more recent finds, so even if you’ve seen it before, I encourage you to join us.

If you have interest in this session, my 1st annual IBS hike, a meetup at 5:30 on the 19th at Tempo (in the Las Vegas Hilton), or just getting together for a cup of coffee, please let me know!

Photo courtesy of ccharmon

I’ll be giving a talk at the IBS on Tuesday, January 19, and then staying in Las Vegas for a couple more days. I hate to say it, but I really can’t stand Las Vegas. The disposability of the place makes me feel sad for both humanity and our planet. So as a respite, I intend to escape Sin City for the afternoon of the 20th.

A few years ago, I had the great pleasure of hiking in Red Rock Canyon, about 30 minutes outside of town. This year, I intend to return. By hiking into the canyons on Wednesday afternoon, I’ll be missing some great stuff at the International Builder Show, but I expect to make it back to the convention center by dinner time. If this sounds tempting, check out these pictures.

If you are attending the show, and would like to get away for a few hours, please sign up here to join me, and I’ll include you in the trip details. If you can’t join me for the hike, but would still like to get together, please let me know and we’ll try to work out a time to circle up.

Earlier in the year, we announced a partnership with the Pella Certified Contractor (PCC) program, wherein GuildQuality became the preferred provider of customer satisfaction surveying and an integral part of the PCC program.  Since that time, over 30 new PCCs have become members of the GuildQuality community, and this number continues to grow.

As an extension of our relationship with Pella, and to recognize those PCCs who are the “best of the best” in customer satisfaction, Pella has announced a new PCC Customer Satisfaction Award, powered by GuildQuality.  The award will recognize those PCCs who are delivering an outstanding customer experience, specifically for their Pella-related jobs.

To be eligible for the award, PCCs must be an active GuildQuality member as of December 31, 2009. In addition, the winners must survey a minimum of the last 20 completed Pella jobs, achieving a 90% recommendation rate  and 60% response rate to the surveys.  The award recipients will be notified in March 2010.

This award is a separate distinction from than the annual Guildmaster awards, and members may apply for both.

For more information, please contact GuildQuality’s sales department at 888-355-9223 or sales@guildquality.com.

In October, the good people at Kohler hosted a handful of our custom homebuilders at their company headquarters in Kohler, Wisconsin. Business-wise, the trip included a tour of the historic factory and a series of focus groups. The Kohler team was interested in sharing with our homebuilders how they craft their products, and hearing our members’ thoughts on what Kohler can be doing to help them deliver superior quality and service to their homeowners.

The Kohler factory is an exhibit of craftsmanship from every period of our history. Kohler artisans are hand finishing fixtures almost immediately alongside giant robot arms and glowing vats of molten iron. If you are a builder or remodeler, and you ever you have an opportunity to visit Kohler, Wisconsin, you must go. I have never seen anything like it, and it elevated my appreciation of both American industry and industrial artistry.

But the visit wasn’t all business. We stayed at the historic American Club, dined at River Wildlife, and golfed at Whistling Straits. The food and comfort we experienced during our Kohler experience was surpassed only by the thoughtful hospitality of the Kohler team.

12/9/09 UPDATE: Click here to view the recorded webinar.

A few weeks ago, I was spending some time with a number of our members. During our discussion about GuildQuality, their businesses, and state of the market, I was surprised to learn that many of them weren’t aware of our fantastic marketing resources. Upon learning more about what we offer, they encouraged me to get the word out via a webinar.

Webinar: December 3rd, 11am Eastern

On December 3rd, at 11am Eastern, I will be hosting a webinar tutorial for our builders, remodelers, and developers who’d like to learn how to take advantage of our marketing resources and for those who need a refresher on the subject.

We have a number of tools that help our members enhance their online presence and better articulate their quality of service for prospective customers, and I’m excited for the opportunity to share (or re-share) those with you.

In addition to reviewing our complimentary marketing services (like Customer Reports, Member Profiles, Listings, and our integration with a number of social media services), we’ll also spend some time discussing prospect surveying (which now accounts for 15% of our total survey volume!).

With me will be Laura Summerlin (our Member Services Director) and Mark Miles (our COO).

Click here to register for our 1 hour webinar.

We encourage all of our remodeler members to apply to become a member of the Big50 Class of 2010. Each year, Remodeling recognizes 50 companies that are leading our industry in professionalism, innovation, and best practices. Over the last several years, Guildmembers have represented 15% to 20% of each class. This is a great honor, and if you’ve not applied before, we encourage you to do so.

For the second year, GuildQuality is powering Remodeling’s Big50 Service Excellence Award. Last year’s first ever Service Excellence Award was a big success, and we’re excited to be working with the Hanley Wood team again for the 2010 Award.

For Guildmembers, applying for the Service Excellence Award is easy. All you need to do is check the box at the end of the application, and that will opt you in for consideration.

For non-Guildmember Big50 Applicants, there’s no extra charge for applying for the Service Excellence Award — the surveying process is very similar to our Free Trial.

Click here to download the Big50 application form. Applications are due by December 7.