The 2010 Guildmaster Awards
The GuildQuality Guildmaster Awards celebrate service excellence among home builders, remodelers, developers, property managers, home services contractors, and real estate professionals. The awards are open to all Guildmembers who apply. GuildQuality begins accepting applications in October 1, and announces the award winners on or about May 1 of the following year.
In granting awards, GuildQuality considers two primary metrics for each candidate: the percentage of customers who would recommend and the percentage of customers who responded. Incorporating a high response rate into the calculation enables us to confidently recognize top performing companies, however, in many cases, some companies will receive very high customer satisfaction scores but may not qualify because too few customers responded to a survey.
Please note that the Guildmaster award requirements and review process change from year to year. There are two major changes to the process and qualifications this year: First, we introduced a public review period for each application (in prior years, applicants provided written affirmations of the veracity and completeness of their customer lists). Second, we have reduced the minimum response rate required for applicants with larger customer volumes (who tend to have lower response rates, regardless of their customers' level of satisfaction). Both of those changes are described in more detail below.
Minimum recommendation rate
The primary requirement for receiving a Guildmaster Award is exemplary customer service, as demonstrated by an extremely high customer recommendation rate. In the home building, remodeling, and real estate industry, the average customer recommendation rate for businesses is approximately 70%. In order to receive a Guildmaster Award, a member must achieve a recommendation rate of 90% or greater.
Number of survey responses reviewed and minimum required response rate
In considering eligibility for an award, GuildQuality reviews survey feedback received from all customers who have bought a home or had work completed in the current calendar year. If that includes fewer than 20 survey responses (as is often the case for companies with a small number of customers each year), GuildQuality includes older responses in the review as well, so that the feedback from the most recent 20 customers who responded to a survey are considered. Under no circumstances are Guildmembers with fewer than 20 surveys responses eligible for a 2010 Guildmaster Award.
In addition to a minimum number of survey responses, GuildQuality also requires a minimum response rate. Candidates with fewer than 20 survey responses in the year must have a minimum survey response rate of 70%. The minimum response rate decreases as a candidate's survey feedback increases according to the schedule below. Candidates with 100 or more survey responses in the year must have a minimum survey response rate of 50%.
Customers who receive multiple surveys over the course of their relationship with the Guildmember
In many cases, a Guildmember may survey the same customer multiple times. In a typical scenario, a Guildmember may survey a homebuyer at the time of contract, shortly after closing, and a third time one year after closing. For the purposes of calculating these awards, GuildQuality considers survey volume rather than customer volume. As such, some Guildmaster Award winners may receive their award based on multiple surveys from the same customers.
Active Guildmembers only
To be eligible for an award, a company must be a Guildmember in good standing at the time of nomination and through the public review period. After receiving an award, companies with lapsed memberships may continue to promote their status as Guildmaster Award Winners, but only current Guildmembers will be promoted on the GuildQuality website.
Applying for an Award
From October 1, 2009 until January 1, 2010, members can apply for the following year's Guildmaster Awards. For an application to be accepted, a member must verify that they have provided (or will provide by the end of the current year) GuildQuality with a complete and unabridged list of their customers, excluding any disclosed exceptions.
Exceptions
For operational reasons, a member may not survey certain types of customers or jobs. Some examples: A new home builder might not survey about small remodeling projects done for past clients, a design-build remodeler might not survey handyman clients, a condominium developer who also owns apartment buildings might not survey apartment residents, or a landscape installer might not survey maintenance-only customers.
Applicants who do not survey all of their customers are required to disclose those omissions in their award application. We reserve the right to reject applications that contain exceptions that we deem too broad or vague.
So that consumers can understand whether all customers were surveyed and what was the profile of excluded customers, GuildQuality publishes the exceptions for each of its award winners in the winner's award profile.
New Members
Members who joined GuildQuality during the 2009 calendar year may be considered for a Guildmaster Award if they have been a member for a minimum of three months, surveyed all of their customers since joining, and received at least 100 survey responses. So that consumers can understand when surveying began for a member, GuildQuality will publish the month in which the member joined in 2009 in the winner's award profile.
While it is the responsibility of the applicant to provide GuildQuality with an unabridged customer list for surveying, we rely on the consumer public to police the completeness of each application.
For a period of 120 days following each candidate's application, the candidate is listed as an applicant for the forthcoming year's Guildmaster Awards. During this time, the Guildmember's Profile and Customer Report will include a reference to their candidacy and a link for past customers to notify GuildQuality if they have not previously received a survey.
If GuildQuality determines that a candidate has omitted a customer from the survey process (other than those customers they disclose as "exceptions"), GuildQuality may, at its sole discretion, disqualify the candidate, make the member ineligible for future awards, and/or cancel their membership.
Announcing the Award Winners
After the 120 day review period, GuildQuality will review the survey activity and customer feedback for each eligible candidate to determine if they qualify for an award based on the requirements established for that year's Guildmaster Awards. Qualifying members will be notified immediately upon qualifying, and all winners will be announced on or about May 1.