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

Susan Bady, Senior Editor of Custom Builder Magazine, penned an excellent article on Payne & Payne, NAHB’s Custom Builder of 2009. I caught a picture of the award announcement at the Custom Builder Symposium in November, and had the pleasure of spending a good bit of time with most of the Paynes.

Congratulations to Case/Design Remodeling, Professional Remodeler’s 2010 Remodeler of the Year. I’m thrilled to see them earn this type of recognition after the kind of year the industry had in 2009. Case is among a large handful of our members that constantly challenge us to improve the way we do business, and they always initiate those conversations with some thoughtful suggestions that would bring value to both them and our larger membership. A number of the enhancements (both small and large) that we’ve made over the last three years are things that emerged from a conversation with the Case team.

As a follow up to our mid-year post on the same subject, here are a list of the 10 most viewed member profiles:

1. Big State Remodeling

2. Carnemark Systems & Design

3. Betenbough Homes

4. Ivey Residential

5. Curb Appeal Renovations

6. Quadrant Homes

7. Conaway Homes

8. Penguin Windows

9. Case Design/Remodeling

10. Structures Building Company

And here are the 10 most-viewed member customer reports:

1. Penguin Windows

2. Heritage Homes

3. Francis Harvey & Sons

4. Thompson Creek

5. Normandy Builders

6. Case Design/Remodeling

7. Jeff Benton Homes

8. Carnemark Systems & Design

9. Curb Appeal Renovations

10. GuildQuality (that’s us!)

11. Westpoint Homes

Each year, Rackspace sponsors a customer service competition. The “Fanati” award is designed to recognized “fanatical” service among the company’s customers. This year’s application required that candidates submit a 5 minute video about their company.

In our video application, you’ll hear three Atlanta-area members describe why they use GuildQuality, what we do for them, and what kind of people make up our team.

Special thanks to Dwayne Hill at Traton Homes, Kelly Rulis at John Wieland Homes & Neighborhoods, Dan Weidmann of Weidmann Remodeling, and Alan Stump (the video’s producer).

Way back in 2003, Frank Lott, III of Heritage Homes in Mobile, Alabama signed on with my shiny new company, GuildQuality. Frank is an excellent guy, and one of the members that I sincerely lament isn’t here in Atlanta where I could see him more frequently.

While preparing for a presentation tomorrow, I was spot checking the web presences of a bunch of the home builders, remodelers, developers, and contractors that rely on GuildQuality’s customer satisfaction surveying. When I googled “Heritage Homes, Mobile, AL”, up popped a bunch of Extreme Makeover videos from early 2008.

The Heritage team is filled with wonderful people, and you’ll see that come through in these amazing videos. I encourage you to check them out.

By the way, if you have interesting news to share about your company, don’t hesitate to send it our way. The people that make up our community of quality enjoy reading about our other members.

In our Newsletter from November, you’ll find an article on best practices, a webinar invitation, member news, and an invite to beta test a new GuildQuality service.

Earlier today at the Custom Builder Symposium in San Diego, Cleveland’s Payne & Payne Builders was recognized as the NAHB 2009 Custom Home Builder of the Year.

Company co-founder Mike Payne Sr accepted the award on behalf of the company, his brother and co-founder David Payne, and his four sons that are now a part of the business. The Paynes received a standing ovation from the crowd.

Joanne Hall of Villa Builders was kind enough to share with me this great picture of her company’s 2009 Guildmaster Award hanging in her office.

Between now and the end of the year, members can apply for the 2010 Guildmaster Awards.

Earlier this month, Professional Remodeler published their 5 market leaders from each of the 20 major markets in the United States. Of the 100 companies recognized by ProRemodeler, 21 are GuildQuality Guildmembers.

I’m a firm believer that bigger is not necessarily better. One of my favorite Guildmembers limits his capacity to no more than 7 custom homes per year. Nevertheless, size is a meaningful indicator. In today’s world, it is difficult to grow and sustain a large service business without running a professional operation — and it is especially difficult to do so without also delivering a great customer experience.

I’m grateful that so many of these accomplished businesses allow us to be a part of their strategy for success, and we’re proud of the work we do for them.

We’re happy to report that one of our Guildmembers, WindowPRO of Cleveland, Ohio, has been named a 2009 Dealer of the Year by Window & Door magazine.  Recognized for Excellence in Innovative Thinking, WindowPRO has operated as a family-owned business for 80 years while continuing to reinvent itself through the decades.  In the most recent transition, WindowPRO began carrying the Marvin line of windows and doors and re-branded the company.

Jake Zahnow, President of WindowPRO, shares some terrific advice for owners — “Sometimes you’ve got to burn the ships and say we’re going in a new direction, all based on the belief that what’s in the future will be better than what’s in the past.”

Click here to read the article.

UPDATE: SEPTEMBER 30 — We’ve finished compiling the full report (Thanks for your help, Michael!). Click here to view and/or download it.

In our survey from last week, more than 100 Guildmembers offered their predictions for their and the market’s performance in the near term. This marks the fourth consecutive quarter in which members have offered us their predictions.

Once we finish compiling all the commentary, we’ll publish a complete summary report. [UPDATE: The full report is now available here.] Until then, here are the highlights:

While fewer people (4%) predict the market will worsen than at any time in the past year, a dramatically larger percentage (64%) believe we’ve made all of our gains and predict that the next six months will be about the same as things are presently.

Also of note, the “Guildmember Confidence Index” declined for the first time since we began tracking it a year ago. While not as high as last quarter, anything above zero means that, on the whole, members expect improvement. While they continue to forecast improvement, they foresee less improvement in the near term than when they were asked the same question in prior quarters.

We’ll wait a few more days to give everyone an opportunity to reply to the survey, and then we’ll compile the feedback into a single document. You can read more about past Guildmember Confidence Reports by clicking here.

In the most recent Remodeling Magazine, Victoria Downing penned a tight article on why many remodelers (and custom builders or developers) rely on customer satisfaction surveying to deliver a great customer experience, how they use it in their day to day operations, and how it can help them to drive up referrals.

Longtime member Trace Ventures enjoyed the spotlight in this article. On a related note, Trace Ventures was profiled by HGTVpro in 2008 for their innovative employee compensation strategy that weaves customer satisfaction and gross profit into the bonus plan.

We recently had the pleasure of spending about 45 minutes with three remodeling leaders as they talked about how their businesses deliver a superior customer experience and how their focus on quality manifests itself in their company culture, systems, and processes.

We recorded the conversation and it is now available on NARI’s website.  Click here to listen.

Special thanks to Bruce Case (Case Design/Remodeling of Bethesda, MD), Todd Jackson (Jackson Design and Remodeling of San Diego, CA), and Greg Harth (Harth Builders of Spring House, PA), for being generous with their time and insights.

As different as their businesses are, all three of these great leaders share a passion for quality, and work diligently to elevate the stature of our profession to a level commensurate with its importance in our lives.

Jim Cory’s article on web marketing describes what a number of forward-thinking remodelers (and their consultants) are doing to get the word out about their businesses. Using technology (and GuildQuality) to articulate your quality to prospective clients is just one of several great suggestions. From the article (Page 3):

What carries far greater weight are views gathered through an independent third-party survey company, such as GuildQuality, which surveys clients and links its feedback results from your site to its company site. Click on any one of 10 subject headings on Eberle Remodeling’s website, for instance, and a link on the left side of the screen says,  “Click here to view our customer satisfaction ratings”, and steers you to the company’s GuildQuality page, which incorporates responses from 72 clients and gives the remodeler a “100% Recommended” rating.

Last month, Professional Remodeler described how Weidmann Remodeling was doing the same thing. Many of our members use their customer report to give people an understanding of what their company is all about from the eyes of past customers. As mentioned last week, I suspect this emerging best practice is one of the contributers to our significant climb in consumer traffic.

Other strategies/initiatives/best practices/resources described in the Remodeling article: search engine optimization, site re-design, google analytics, and client logins.

And don’t stop at the end of the article. There’s a great coda from Remodeling’s Senior Editor Leah Thayer about social networks, in which she answers the question, “What remodeler has the luxury of doing anything as goofy as ‘tweeting’ in an economy like this?”

Back in early July, we posted a preview of the feedback to our most recent Guildmember Confidence survey. The full report is now available for your review. Click here to download it.