GuildQuality

GuildQuality recently partnered with improveit! 360, a web-based CRM solution used by a growing number of our members. This alliance was formed to make it easier for remodelers and replacement contractors to quickly and effortlessly compile information needed to survey their customers.

improveit! 360 automates the process of assembling the information required by GuildQuality to distribute surveys to customers, saving time and preventing duplicate efforts. Remodelers can schedule this process to automatically run at a specific time of day and be sent directly to GuildQuality for survey execution.

Results are processed faster so home improvement companies can correct service issues discovered through customer feedback and maintain a positive online reputation.

We’re pleased to announce a new partnership with Kudzu, an Atlanta-based company that we’ve gotten to know well over the past couple of years.

If you’ve added Kudzu to your GuildQuality profile page and you have “opted in” to public reviews, those reviews will appear on Kudzu starting next week.   With each review, there will be a 5-star rating, the comment, and a link back to your GuildQuality summary report.

Here’s how Kudzu will present your GuildQuality reviews:

For those who are unfamiliar with Kudzu, here’s some background from their website:  “Kudzu.com enables homeowners to choose the best service providers for their home and family and gives service providers an online forum to drive “word of mouth” for their businesses.”

Kudzu powers the “Find a Pro” directory on HGTV.com.  Kudzu launched in Atlanta, and has broadened to reach a national audience.

To take advantage of this new feature, log into your account and go to Marketing Admin.  Then add Kudzu to your Social Media links and select “Ask for and Publish Customer Reviews.”

This morning, I saw Kyle Hunt mention audio testimonials. I thought it sounded clever, and reached out for more details.

Turns out, it’s pretty easy to set up and easy to implement. Kyle sets up a phone number for you that you can pass on to your clients. They dial in and record a brief message describing their experience working with you, and that message is automagically available to the visitors to your website. Kyle explains the full details here.

Are any of our members doing anything like this? Please share your thoughts/experiences below.

In this great/brief video, GuildQuality member Ridley Wills of The Wills Company shares why he is a member of Remodelers Advantage Roundtables.

Our friend and industry journalist Leah Thayer at daily5Remodel continues to churn out great information every weekday morning for construction professionals, and we happily endorse d5R’s move into the “paid content realm” with d5R Premium.

Here are two of the many great things about d5R Premium:

1) besides all the free daily content that comes with a standard d5R subscription, your Premium sub can also save you hundreds of dollars on services from some of the best consulting sources in the industry, help you leverage customized marketing tools for your business, and give you 24-7 access to in-depth case studies and reports.

2) as a Guildmember, you save 20%!

To take advantage of the 20% savings, you’ll need to enter a special GQ code in the “special offer” box, shown in the image here:

If you’re a Guildmember and don’t have a discount code, contact d5R directly to request one (type “need GQ code” in subject line).

By the way, if you’re not already getting d5R, we recommend that you start today. Click here to register for a free subscription, which starts with a 30-day free Premium trial.

In our Newsletter from September, you’ll find ways to integrate GuildQuality to your Twitter and Facebook accounts, why we switched the recommendation question in surveys from yes/ no to zero to four, our Q3 Member Prediction Report, and more.

Subscribe to our newsletter here.

For the last half-dozen years, we’ve used an email marketing software for all of our mass emailing. While the GuildQuality application handles our email surveying and system notifications, an Australian company called CampaignMonitor helps us with all the other stuff.

If we’re sending a notification to all of our members about how to use a new feature, CampaignMonitor powers it. If we’re notifying all of our Dallas prospects that we’ll be in town in a few weeks, CampaignMonitor powers that message. And this morning, CampaignMonitor sent out our latest member newsletter.

Here is the dashboard report for the newsletter’s first hour out in the wild.

(Click on image to enlarge)

Pretty much any email marketing software will do a few of basic things for you:

1) Enable you to send good looking emails to lots of people;

2) Manage your recipient list, allow people to subscribe, allow people to unsubscribe, and keep you from sending emails to folks who’ve unsubscribed; and

3) Track who opens the email, who clicks on links, and on which links people click.

A good email marketing software will do all this with style. CampaignMonitor’s reporting is exceptional. We’re contemplating a big overhaul of GuildQuality’s own customer satisfaction performance reporting for our builders, remodelers, and developers, and CampaignMonitor is one of the web applications we look to for inspiration.

Here are a couple more screen shots to give you an idea of the thought and polish that goes into their reporting, and the value one can get from a great looking report: (more…)

On Wednesday, June 16, at 1:30PM EST, Brent Warren, of the Southern Living Custom Builder Program, will host a 45 minute webinar to share information and answer questions about Southern Living’s preferred builder program.

Please join Brent and me on the 16th to learn more about this great organization. Click here to register for the webinar.

About the program:

The Southern Living Custom Builder Program is a network of some of the finest custom homebuilders in the South. Southern Living magazine carefully selects custom home builders that transcend the pages of the magazine into a dream home. Members are chosen for their extensive experience and knowledge, reputation in the marketplace, customer service, excellence in architecture, and home building that tells a Southern story. Only the finest custom homebuilders are invited to be a part of this one-of-a-kind program.

Learn more here.

In our Newsletter from May, we announce our 2010 Guildmaster award winners, feature our Q1 Member Predictions Report, announce a new partnership with James Hardie Preferred Remodelers and more.

Subscribe to our newsletter here.

3/30 UPDATE – Breyer Construction became the first member to respond to questions on RemodelQA’s site.  Check out the GQ badge and link to their Customer Report.

I recently connected with an old friend, who has launched a website called RemodelQA.  The site is intended to connect homeowners, who have questions about remodeling or home improvement projects, with qualified professionals.  While still early days, the company has 39,000 indexed pages in Google.

The company was founded by experts in search engine optimization.  If you search “remodeling questions” in Google, RemodelQA is the second listing.  When you respond to a question and share your expertise, the response creates a unique internet page that exists forever and will be searchable by Google.   So, this is a way to market your expertise and create a permanent “flyer” for your business on the internet.  In some cases, it might also lead to a qualified lead.

RemodelQA is a free service, and they are marketing GuildQuality members on their site.  Click here to sign up, upload your company’s logo, add links to your social media, and become part of RemodelQA’s online Contractor Directory.  Finally, GuildQuality members will be noted with the GQ logo (see below) and you can insert a link to your Customer Report.

Please let us know your feedback as you try out this service.

In our Newsletter from February, we announce a real-time feed of published member activity, how you can take advantage of the new feature, other products announcements and more.

Subscribe to our newsletter here.

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.

Last week, we rolled out a new feature providing homeowners with a summary email following the completion of a survey – even if the response was provided by telephone (55% of responses).  This is an opportunity for the homeowner to view their completed survey response, contact us if they’d like to make changes, and for members to share more information about their company and services (ie, the Member Profile and Customer Report).  This is also another step towards helping our members further engage the homeowner following the survey, and ties in with our forthcoming beta project.

In July, we launched a new service focused on surveying our member’s sales prospects, typically after the initial appointment. The response from our members was positive and prospect surveying accounted for 14% of our total survey volumes last month.

We’re hearing that close ratios are improving, as members listen to their prospects and better understand how they are performing in sales situations. The prospect survey also sets the stage for future GuildQuality surveying, and reinforces that you care about feedback.

If you are interested in learning more, contact us.

Responding to feedback from our members, we’re pleased to announce our new Prospect Surveying service.

Using our Prospect Surveying template, the service will enable you to collect detailed feedback from homeowners who are either evaluating your company or who have decided not to work with you.  The questions cover a range of topics — including the homeowner’s decision-making criteria and your performance in listening to their needs, presenting appropriate solutions, and following-up.  You will be able to identify the areas in which you exceeded and fell short of expectations.

The service will leverage our telephone, email, and mail card surveying process in order to generate a higher response rate than you might achieve with email or mail alone.  The “live” conversations between our surveyors and the homeowner will provide rich, actionable commentary that can help you close more business and better manage your sales team.

Over the last few months, we’ve beta tested the service with our own sales prospects and with a select group of members, including WindowPRO and Case Design/Remodeling.  For these two members, prospects were surveyed after the initial sales appointment and during their evaluation.  The survey is short and sweet, taking no more than 2-3 minutes to complete.  40-50% of those surveyed have been willing to complete the survey, providing information on a large number of prospects.

Here’s what Jake Zahnow, CEO of WindowPRO, has to say about their experience… “this provides another touch point with our prospects to find out exactly where they are in the decision process.” Jake reviews every completed survey, then follows up with his salespeople to close the loop with the homeowner.  He is surveying 100% of the company’s prospects, which he believes sets the stage for another GuildQuality survey once they become customers – “it shows that we listen.”

Homa Nowrouzi of Case Design/Remodeling shares that they survey a sample of prospects every month, and are “sharing the information broadly within the organization to create healthy competition and excellence at every level.”  Homa indicates that the company’s closing ratio on new business has improved, and they have built the results into compensation plans.

There is no additional cost to add this service — you simply pay on a per survey basis.  The data and feedback is kept in a separate GuildQuality account, so this will not affect your scores for customer surveying.

If you are interested, please contact us at support@guildquality.com.  We can have you up and running very quickly.