“Will Customer Comments about Your Business Catapult or Crush You?”

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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.

Southwest Exteriors was recognized today as one of Window & Door Magazine’s 2011 Dealers of the Year.  The full story can be found here.

A GuildQuality member since 2006, Southwest Exteriors has achieved a 98% recommendation rate and an 84% response rate to surveys.  We survey all of Southwest’s clients and sales prospects, and Scott Barr (owner) personally reads the feedback from every client.  As a result of this commitment to quality, Southwest enjoys one of the industry’s highest referral rates.

I think Geoff said it well when interviewed for the feature story, “The world would be a much better place if every business operated like Southwest Exteriors.”  Congratulations to Scott and the Southwest Exteriors team!

Calculated Risk reports that Redfin is bringing more transparency to the real estate brokerage industry.

Listings are as much advertisements for brokers’ services as they are advertisements for available homes, so it’s easy for the layperson to assume that a bunch of signs equals a bunch of sales. Redfin aims to eliminate this confusion by showing agents’ actual production data.

While there are plenty of worthy exceptions out there (an excellent agent is an invaluable resource) the real estate brokerage community has largely attempted to preserve it’s value by controlling the keys to the information castle. In contrast, the best agents out there have embraced service, innovation and professionalism as the path toward success. Their success, coupled with resources like Redfin, Zillow, and Craigslist, is compelling the rest of the industry to either follow them or find another job.

What other changes would you like to see in real estate brokerage?

As a side project, we’re messing around with maps. Here’s a heat map showing our members’ survey responses in the conterminous United States from the last five years. The larger the dot, the more survey responses in that zip code.

We engaged a contractor for this work. He did a great job showing a bright spark the moment a customer completes a survey, with the spark fading to a glowing ember. Press play and watch our surveying spread all over the country.

In all, this is about half of our survey responses. To narrow the geographic area, we excluded Alaska, Hawaii, Canada, and the Caribbean. And to keep the data set manageable, we excluded surveys conducted during free trials of our service, prospect surveys, and surveys conducted as part of market research projects.

This is a fun visualization that helps us to think about how we might introduce more maps both into your account and onto the public website. An example might include an interactive map on your public member profile page that shows where you’re working, pictures of your work, and reviews. And inside your private account, we could display a map with additional details, like satisfaction scores, comments, and project information.

Right now, we’re experimenting with how to bring an engaging member map back to the homepage, but I’m curious what our members think: How could maps be most useful to you, either inside your account or on your member profile page?

For more fun maps, check out the two that inspired this project: The Growth of Walmart & Costco and Kiva Lending.

We’re working with the good folks at TourBuzz to organize a roundtable for Atlanta-area Software-as-a-service companies on October 20. This will be an event for owners and operators of growth-oriented SAAS companies with at least $250k in TTM revenue (most of the those signed up so far are north of $1M).

Here’s the application form, and read on for more details. (more…)

I just returned from a big trail run in Colorado. During the first mile and a half, we climbed about 1,000 feet — from 8,600 to 9,600 feet above sea level. For a lowlander accustom to Atlanta’s rolling hills, this was an arduous start to a wonderful journey.

Whenever I’m facing a challenge, and questioning my ability to overcome, I think about 21 year-old Terry Fox running across Canada, 26 miles a day, every day, with one good leg and a prosthetic limb.

With conviction and purpose, anything is possible.

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.”

Yesterday afternoon, we turned on the new GuildQuality Dashboard. The old dash is still live, but above it, you’ll see a prompt to check out the new dash. Please do!

Our goal with the new dash was to enable you to do and see as much as possible from the dashboard, and minimize your need to dive deeper into the account in order to see trends in performance. A few things you’ll notice:

1) We’ve added a Scorecard right on the dash. Click on “edit” and you can filter what’s being represented. To maintain super speed on the dashboard, this Scorecard is a lighter version of the the Scorecard page in the app, so when you want to dive deep into your data, you simply click on the Scorecard header on that module, and you navigate to the more robust Scorecard page.

2) Recent Responses are now vertically oriented. Switching from a horizontal ticker to a vertical ticker enabled us to more clearly display your feedback, and as an added bonus, you can click on “more” ad infinitum, to see older and older responses.

3) Publish comments straight from the dash (Admin users only). Next to each comment is a publish (or un-publish) button, so with a single click you can have a customer’s comment appear on your member profile page (here’s a link to ours). You’ll also see the little Twitter and Facebook icons that enable you to activate or deactivate your social media integrations with a single click.

We’ll keep the old dash as the default landing page for the next week or so. Then we’ll switch to having the new dash as the default, and give people the option to go back to the old one if they like. We wanted to get this out in the wild, and see how our members actually use it. Once it’s been out there for a while, we’ll make one final round of enhancements.

My wife spotted a profile of PE Guerin in Traditional Home Magazine, and followed the QR code to this video.

I have a great deal of respect for people who craft useful works of art by hand: blacksmiths, carpenters, masons, and all the professional trades who, through their labor, skill, and creativity turn the Earth’s raw materials into beautiful homes. The skills of these men and women are under-appreciated and more young people should consider a path like the one they’ve chosen.

Update: Shortly after I posted this, Attention To Detail shared this video about how quarrymen cut white marble. Fascinating.

Charleston members take note: The 23rd Annual PRISM Award applications are due on September 28. The awards ceremony will be November 11 at the American Theater. From the Charleston Trident Home Builders Association website:

Join us for a lovely evening downtown at the American Theater as we celebrate the 23rd Annual PRISM Awards.  Some of Charleston’s top Builders, Remodelers and Affiliates will be recognized in the field of sales, marketing and promotion of new homes!

As in previous years, GuildQuality will be powering a customer service award, and Guildmembers who enter for that category receive a $50 discount on their application fee. Click here to download the application from the CTHBA website. As a Guildmember, applying for the customer service award is simple: All you have to do is enter—there’s no need to send in additional customer information.

Heather Fricke (né VanSickle) joined the GuildQuality team in 2004, and her last day was several weeks ago. That’s quite a bit of one’s life to invest in the growth of a company.

When reflecting on someone’s impact, metrics are an easy thing to point to: When Heather came on board, we had four people on the team and five figures of revenue. While she was with us, Heather helped to shepherd us past the seven figure mark. She became the second salesperson to hit seven figures in total sales, and at the time she left, she was personally responsible for bringing GuildQuality more revenue (and members!) than any other individual.

Less measurable (but even more important) is Heather’s influence on GuildQuality’s culture. Her members will be the first to tell you that she’s warm, caring, and service-oriented. Our informal motto is “Always be nice,” and Heather epitomizes that attitude. She’s a good friend, and I’m grateful to have had the opportunity to work with her for so long.

We just received a passel of GuildQuality tee-shirts. After each member of our crew receives one, we’ll still have a bunch left over. That means it’s time for a tee-shirt giveaway!

How can you earn your very own limited-edition, first-run, American Apparel teeshirt emblazoned with the GuildQuality Levo Vestri Opus motto (which means “Elevate Your Work”)?

Easy. Answer the following question:

“Why are you a Guildmember?”

But, here’s the catch: You must answer that question with a post on your company’s blog.

Bonus Opportunity: Want THREE shirts instead of just one? Answer the question with a brief video (recorded with your webcam or iPhone) and post the video to your blog.

Once you’ve posted your answer, email us at support [at] guildquality [dot] com to let us know the size shirt(s) that you want. Two things to keep in mind: 1) we only have sizes Small through Extra Large, and 2) we only have about 25 extra shirts, so this giveaway is going on until we run out.

After making $240 million in micro-loans, 99% of Kiva lenders have been repaid. Not only is this a great story, but it’s also a great infographic (turn up the sound on your computer, and hit play).

Intercontinental Ballistic Microfinance from Kiva on Vimeo.

In a world where the internet has yet to produce great gains for the poorest of poor, here’s a wonderful example of how it’s helping people in poverty-stricken places lift themselves, their families and their communities to a better place.

This month’s newsletter includes an update about GuildQuality badges, reviews in search results, lots of member and partner news, and job openings at GuildQuality.

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