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Make a Splash Winning Project: Pool Environments’ Luxury Pool with a View

Imagine for a moment coming home to this…

Pool Environments

Breathtaking, we know. Our blog readers felt the same way. Not only did they fall in love with the captivating Texas view, they also adored the tranquil look of the luxurious negative edge pool developed by Pool Environments. With 75% of the vote, Pool Environments won GuildQuality’s first Make a Splash Poll!

New to GuildQuality, but not new to quality, Pool Environments is known in the Dallas, Texas area for their passionate craftsmanship. The company has become synonymous with designing and constructing dazzling high-end pools and this particular project was no exception.

“From the street, the house looks like your everyday home. As you approach the back, that’s where the unique factor comes in; there is a dramatic slope with tall retaining walls,” said Chris Polito, Co-Owner and Vice President of Pool Environments. “The project took a total of two years to build. The pool is suspended above the garage on the third floor of the home and supported by 2′ I beams. If you stand in the garage on the basement level of the home, you can literally walk under the structure of the pool. It was built completely out of ground, on a massive steel framework set just feet from the 30′ sheer drop off.”

Pool Environments

The homeowners, like our blog readers, really favored the look of the negative edge pool.

Chris shared, “Our clients love being able to look out and feel as though the water goes on forever. It’s a striking feature when entertaining and a relaxing feature when you’re enjoying the views.”

Of course, Chris and the Pool Environments team had their favorite aspects of the project as well. “The home is just minutes from Fort Worth, but you’d never know it. The home’s backdrop makes you feel like you’re in the country, nowhere near a busy city.”

Pool Environments

This stunning pool is just one in a sea of many astonishing projects completed by Pool Environments.

“We’ve been in business since 1990 and have always valued quality over quantity. We could certainly take on a larger volume of projects, but the quality could suffer. We focus on giving each project the attention it needs to ensure we deliver exactly what our clients hired us to do, provide them with excellence.”

Visit the company’s GuildQuality member profile page to see project photos and customer reviews for Pool Environments.

You’re Invited! GuildQuality’s Owner Series Kicks Off June 26th

Social media and online marketing has changed the landscape for companies when it comes to communicating with their customers. Business owners in the residential construction industry are no exception. Done correctly, social media and web marketing can play a very powerful role in driving your business forward.

In this 45-minute panelist webinar, you’ll hear from some of the industry’s leaders who have successfully incorporated social media and online marketing into their business strategy and are reaping the rewards.

Join us for an informal discussion, where our panelists will share their expertise on the following subjects (and more!):

Using social media and web marketing to stand out and generate leads.
Deployment strategies that have the biggest impact.
Creating and sharing engaging content with their followers.

GuildQuality Success Story: Power Home Remodeling Group On Improving Communication With Customers

Power Home Remodeling Group is a prime example of a company who fearlessly joined the online conversation about their brand. They realized their online reputation was vital to the growth of their business, and began to research, strategize, improve, and ultimately embrace the concept of social customer service.

“Before joining GuildQuality, our company began to see the vast potential of consistently and constructively communicating with customers. Our primary corporate focus, we believed in the opportunity third-party surveying provided,” said Bennett Andelman, Power’s Director of Marketing Communications. “We saw our competitors ranking aggressively on searches with their customer reviews, and at the time we were re-actively managing our reputation. We needed to be much more proactive and this platform presented that opportunity to us.”

SEO was a motivating factor in Power Home Remodeling Group’s decision to become a GuildQuality member. Majority of GuildQuality member profile pages pop up as a page one search return. But ultimately it was the ability to better connect with customers that enticed Power to join.

“To better align with our customers, we internally administered surveys to them. It didn’t work. We surveyed sporadically, and because we were supplying the surveys to customers ourselves, the feedback felt positively swayed,” said Bennett. “GuildQuality gave us the opportunity to insert an unbiased third-party who had the resources to reach a larger portion of our customers. Now if a concern pops up, we have the ability to know right away, and as the owners of our reputation we can connect with the customer in real time.”

With every GuildQuality customer survey they receive, Power Home Remodeling Group reviews the feedback as a team. The impact of the responses has been so great for their company, that Power has extended surveying to ventures with their partners.

“We have a large subset of our business based in retail settings, and we’ve begun to survey customers from these sources. It’s been extremely beneficial for us and our partners to know how our company is performing before, during and after installation,” said Bennett.

In addition to sharing the impact of customer feedback with partners, Power Home Remodeling Group has approached the emergence of social media and online review sites head on and views it as another avenue to communicate with customers.

“We want our customers to reach out to us on social and review platforms. If we’re doing something well, our customers will share and it’ll promote our brand to prospective customers. If we make a mistake, we’re able to address the situation and provide a solution in a public way which can also help with prospective customers,” said Bennett. “We expect though that if there is an issue raised online, and we fix the problem, that our customer will modify their review or comment to reflect that we’ve corrected our error.”

It’s a testimony to Power Home Remodeling Group’s focus on customer relationships that their concern about communicating with customers has since transformed into a capability to communicate effectively with their customers. The company now boasts a 100% communication satisfaction score on their customer feedback summary.

Visit their GuildQuality member profile page for more information and to read customer reviews for Power Home Remodeling Group.

Congratulations 2013 Guildmaster Winners!

We recently announced the winners of our celebrated Guildmaster Award! GuildQuality has powered the Guildmaster Award since 2005 to recognize service excellence in the home building, remodeling, contracting, and home services professions.

Over the past few months, our team has reviewed numerous survey responses submitted by customers of Guildmaster candidates. In granting awards, GuildQuality considered two primary metrics for each candidate: the percentage of customers who would recommend, and the percentage of customers who responded. Companies who received a Guildmaster Award verified that they had provided GuildQuality with a complete and unabridged customer list, and additionally they achieved a recommendation rate of greater than 90%.

The Guildmaster Award is separated into three separate qualifications:

Guildmaster
Guildmaster with Distinction
Guildmaster with Highest Distinction

Review our qualifications to win a Guildmaster Award for more information.

Over 200 home builders, remodelers, and contractors throughout North America were recognized this year for their superior delivery of customer care. Classic Remodeling (Johns Island, SC), Cook Bonner Construction (Charleston, SC), Eberle Remodeling (Sacramento, CA), Phillip W. Smith General Contractor (Isle of Palms, SC), Revival Construction (Atlanta, GA), and Structures Building Company (Mt. Pleasant, SC) have all received Guildmaster Awards every year since its start.

GuildQuality’s Guildmaster Award not only supplies outstanding service providers with the recognition they deserve, it also helps homeowners to identify exceptional home builders, remodelers, and home services contractors in their area. Take a look at our full list of award winning contractors.

Remodeling Magazine on Responding to Reviews

There’s a fine line when it comes to online customer reviews, they can either promote your company’s quality or diminish your reputation with the click of a button. The urgency to deliver a great customer experience and monitor your online reputation is increasing as homeowners are taking to online review sites and social media to research companies prior to making a commitment to a contractor.

Remodeling Magazine recently published some helpful tips for responding to reviews that every residential construction professional should consider if they’re planning to embrace social customer service and begin to respond to customers who are sharing feedback online.

A recent customer service infographic provided by Dimensional Research and ZenDesk states that 88 percent of buyers have been influenced by online customer service reviews when making their purchase decisions. Successful businesses understand that if their company is committed to delivering excellent customer service, online reviews can become their most compelling marketing tool. Download our free whitepaper, Using Your Reputation to Gain a Competitive Advantage for more strategies on ways to measure your reputation and stand-out in your industry.

Make the Most of Being a Guildmember – 4 Ways to Add Value to Your Surveying Program Today

At GuildQuality, we take our commitment to elevating the stature of the building industry seriously. We want the members of our community of quality to be equipped with the tools they need to better deliver customer service and promote their service excellence both online and in the home. If you’re new to GQ, or even a long time member, here are four ways to get the most value from your GuildQuality membership.

1) Set a Reminder to Submit Data
Surveying your customers seems pretty obvious, but it is often neglected a couple of months after joining. Our members are busy people; they’re making a difference in the lives of their customers. We understand surveying can fall off the radar, but fortunately we’ve put tools in place to help keep it top of mind.

Within the preferences section of each account, members manage the types of notifications they receive. One of the available options includes a handy reminder to submit data (customer info for surveying). You set the pace with this notification, and can select to receive a reminder email every week, bi-weekly or monthly.

Surveying opens up the door to honest communication with your customers. Gathering their feedback in a timely manner is vital for your company to adequately assess strengths and weaknesses.

2) Measure Your Satisfaction
While surveying your customers is important, it’s what you do with the feedback that can impact your business.

Many of our members review each survey response together as a team at weekly meetings. This helps them to boost morale and create team engagement, as well as, develop a culture of customer focused employees. Members also pull detailed reports that put metrics around their customer feedback. Using our reporting suite, they are able to determine satisfaction benchmarks and keep an eye on trends. Start measuring customer satisfaction today.

Additionally, you can add value to your membership simply by configuring your email notifications within your account. Within the Preferences section (also mentioned above) you determine how often you receive survey responses, and you can enable Notes. Our Notes feature takes team discussion about feedback online. When a user adds a note to a survey response, GuildQuality will send a notification to the users who are copied on the survey response in real-time.

3) Promote Your Quality
Part of the fun of being a Guildmember is in telling people you’re a Guildmember! By joining our community of quality, you’re actively trying to better your delivery of customer service, improve your business, and elevate the industry. Being a GuildQuality member is a significant distinction in the market so share what you’re doing with current and prospective customers.

Visit the marketing section of your account and begin promoting your commitment to excellence. Start with your main marketing piece, your GuildQuality member profile page. Add a company bio, social media links, project photos, and be sure to publish your feedback to your map of customer comments.

Once your member profile page is up and running, add the embeddable badge, map of customer comments, and if applicable, our WordPress widget to cross promote your customer feedback on your company website.

Are you set to auto-post customer comments and reviews to your company’s Facebook and Twitter page? Make your customer feedback social. Having a great customer experience go viral on Facebook and Twitter can earn you more business and solidify your status as a service excellence leader.

4) Tag Your Projects So You Can Be Found
Last month, we introduced Find a Member pages to the GuildQuality public website. These pages enable visitors to search their area for members of our community of quality and see what sort of work they’re doing in which specific locations.

If someone is trying to find award winning home improvement contractors, we make it easy to see where great companies are working and what type of work they do. If someone is looking for Indianapolis contractors, they’ll see where dozens of companies have worked with hundreds of customers. If someone needs a remodeler in Atlanta, they can find some great choices via GuildQuality.

If you’re opted in to GuildQuality maps, you’ll automatically show up in searches by company name and location. To take things a step further, add a tag to your projects to appear in more specific searches by location and type of work. Learn more about Find a Member.

Those are just four quick ways to start adding value to your relationship with GuildQuality. What are some things you’re doing at your company to make the most of being a Guildmember?

GuildQuality Success Story: Thompson Creek Windows on the Importance of Customer Feedback and Customer Reviews

Thompson Creek Windows The Importance of Customer Feedback and Customer Reviews Award winning Thompson Creek Windows has had one goal company-wide at the top of their list since inception, 100% customer satisfaction. The Virginia, Maryland, and DC area window, siding, door, and gutter company became a member of GuildQuality in 2009 to help better pursue that goal.

“Before joining GuildQuality, our customers were surveyed by us internally,” stated George Schaub, Director of Marketing for Thompson Creek Windows. “We were only able to achieve a 27% response rate with that process, and it was difficult to tell whether each customer had answered honestly, because the survey was being administered by us directly.”

GuildQuality’s 70% response rate average, comprehensive survey template, and reporting suite transformed how Thompson Creek Windows measured customer satisfaction and shared customer feedback throughout their company.

“We use GuildQuality to determine how well we’re satisfying customers. Weekly, we put together a report including both positive and negative comments and share with our employees.” George stated. “This has helped keep our focus on customer service company-wide. We give shout-outs and acknowledge those employees who are doing a great job of delivering service, and we’re able to engage with those employees who might need some additional guidance in that area. We’re able to see what we strive at as a team and where we might need to change our process.”

GuildQuality also enables Thompson Creek to publish those very comments to Facebook and Twitter, helping to spread authentic testimonials about their service and educate buyers about the quality they present. The company understands the impact customer service has on their online reputation and generating referral business. If you Google Thompson Creek Windows or Maryland Window Reviews, the company’s GuildQuality member profile page pops up as a page one search result displaying genuine stories of over 12,700 of their customers.

“If we want to continue to grow our business, we need happy customers referring their friends and neighbors,” George stated. “People are doing their research online and want to buy from someone they can trust. Having legitimate customer reviews accessible via online searches and social media helps to establish confidence in our brand.”

It’s true. Thompson Creek has included a specific question on their GuildQuality customer satisfaction survey regarding each customer’s decision making factor when selecting their company. Majority of those customers answer online reviews, reputation of the company, and word of mouth.

The three-time Guildmaster with Distinction winners continue to strive for service excellence with 100% customer satisfaction as their goal. Take a look at customer reviews and comments for Thompson Creek Windows to learn more about the company.

10 Tips for Improving Your Search Engine Rank [Guest Post]

I’m excited to introduce the team at Surefire Social as today’s GuildQuality guest bloggers. Surefire Social offers businesses a web-based, social media-driven powerhouse of local lead generation strategies that deliver consistent outcomes by taking the mystery out of digital marketing. I’ve asked their marketing experts to pen a post sharing tips for improving search engine rank. If you find Surefire’s tips useful, take a look at their company blog for more valuable marketing best practices.

If you want your website to be seen, you have to be willing to play the SEO game. Today, search engines are calling the shots when it comes to which websites are going to be found and which ones are getting the boot. Fortunately, there are a few time tested, successful methods for improving search engine rank.

1. Define Keywords and Phrases
When it comes to search engine rank, some SEOs have argued that keywords are no longer necessary. Changes in Google algorithms have indeed changed the way keywords are viewed, so that “keyword stuffing” has become irrelevant and actually detrimental. However, tastefully used, well-researched keywords are still extremely valuable.

With this in mind, make a list of keywords and phrases that you are trying to target and use them in a strategic way across your website. Do not stuff keywords or use keywords that are irrelevant to the site. Be specific and local with your terms. Rather than “remodeler” or “roofer” use “Chicago kitchen remodeler” or “roofing specialists in Georgia”.

2. Move from Content as Links to People as Links
Google has begun using people as links rather than content as links. Although it hasn’t been released yet, AuthorRank is going to be a major ranking factor in Google Search. To take full advantage of this move, use Google Authorship. This tool links your personal Google+ profile to each of your published works, like blog posts and articles. When your content shows up in Google’s search results, viewers will also see your photo. Authorship shows customers you are an expert in your industry, but more importantly, it influences Google rankings. To learn how to successfully set up Authorship, check out our Ultimate Google Magnet handbook.

3. Optimize HTML Meta Data
Meta data is designed for search bots and can aid in search engine rank when used appropriately. Use keywords and phrases within the HTML title tags and descriptive text. Don’t worry about the meta keyword data; most search engines now refer to the actual content on a site to determine relevance.

4. You Can’t Afford to Ignore Social Media Anymore
The rules of local SEO have changed. You must use social media and SEO together to create a successful online presence. Facebook shares and comments are now ranked higher in SEO ranking factors than back-links, according to a 2012 SEO Ranking Factors study. Google looks at social media activity to see what people want to see in Google Search and uses that information as a deciding factor in rankings. Make sure you are regularly updating all social media networks with new and interesting content that attracts users.

5. Content is King
Google loves fresh, informative content. To win rankings, update your site on a regular basis with new blogs, infographics, handbooks, and landing pages that are helpful and interesting to your viewers. You may have a beautifully designed website, but without fresh content, you will not rank well in Google. Also, keep in mind that the better the content, the more people are going to “Like”, comment and share on social media sites which boosts search rankings dramatically.

6. Get Social with Content Distribution
Once you have a process in place for creating fresh, new content, you can establish a powerful digital footprint by distributing that content on major social media networks, social sharing sites and guest blogging sites.

7. Establish Validity through Reviews and Testimonials
A steady stream of reviews and testimonials develops social proof about your company. Ask your customers to leave reviews on your company’s Google+Local page. Then add a landing page on your website to feature those reviews. People love videos so share your customers’ praises on YouTube and other social media networks. When viewers see and hear from your happy customers, they will be much more likely to use your services. Of course GuildQuality’s customer satisfaction surveying solution is a great way to leverage customer feedback to better your online reputation and build repeat business.

8. Think Local
Google is quickly moving to local search, so you must follow in Google’s footsteps in order to rank. A Google+ business page gives your business authority in Google’s eyes and offers potential customers another outlet for finding information. Make sure your business is optimizing its page with backlinks and relevant keywords. But it doesn’t stop there. Dedicate someone to constantly update your page with new content to engage viewers and win Google rankings.

9. The Power of Back-Links
Paying for links is a waste of money; it won’t work. To take full advantage of the power of back-links, you need to score links from high-quality sources. A great way to do this is to guest blog on highly credible sites, with a page rank of 5 and above. You can figure out the page ranks of sites using a variety of free rank checker tools like SEOBook Rank Checker.

10. Never Deploy Black Hat Tricks
Some people use hidden text, cloaking and other tactics to fool a search engine into ranking their site high. Don’t do it. These attempts will backfire and have you blacklisted in no time.

3 Ways to Win the Battle Against Survey Fatigue

Surveys have a bad rap. Companies have caught on to the fact that feedback from their customers is an asset to their success, so they’ve begun surveying in a big way, and in every communication channel possible. You don’t want to overwhelm your customer with another survey, but alas, you need to know how they’re feeling.

Fortunately, homebuilders, remodelers, and home services contractors have a unique advantage when it comes to surveying customers. Because homeowners have invested a considerable amount of money toward their new home or home improvement project, and the project directly impacts their quality of life, they are more emotionally invested and motivated to share feedback. Even though homeowners may view your survey as a priority over others, remember they’re still combatting survey fatigue that you need to overcome.

Position Surveying as a Value Proposition
Our members with the highest survey response rates are masters at setting the stage with customers about their surveying process. They place one-pagers about our multi-touch surveying in new customer kits, they introduce and explain the survey process during initial customer meetings, and they advertise surveying customers on their website. While expressing that customer surveying is a part of each project, these members are also emphasizing how valuable they think their customer’s opinions are.

Does your company review every survey response together as a team? Do you take immediate action when you receive negative feedback? How has customer feedback changed your company’s processes? Share that information with your customers. Not only will it make them feel like your company holds their experiences in the highest regard, it’ll show your company really does care about improving.

How Would Your Customers Like to Be Contacted?
In addition to sharing how much of an asset customer feedback is to your company, sometimes avoiding survey indifference can be as easy as finding out how your customer prefers to be contacted. For homebuilders, remodelers, and home services contractors within our community of quality, 61% of surveys were completed via phone this past month. Email surveys reigned second, followed by mail cards.

Ask Engaging Questions
Your survey itself is the most important tool you have to combat survey fatigue. Ask concise but engaging questions regarding your customer’s experience. Take a look at some of my favorite questions from our most-widely used survey:

• How can [Company Name] make your life better?
• [Company Name] is always seeking ways to improve; do you have one suggestion for something we can change?
• What concerns, if any, did you have about the building process prior to starting this project, and how did we address these concerns?
• In what area(s) do you think [Company Name] fell short of your expectations?

While engaging questions are clutch, be sure to keep the total number of questions on your survey low and avoid asking questions that are redundant in nature.

For more tips on surveying customers, measuring customer satisfaction, and promoting your company’s commitment to excellence, request a free copy of our guidebook on Nurturing and Leveraging Customer Relationships.

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