Measuring Up: Customer satisfaction metrics that matter

Every remodeler advertises great customer service, but how do they really know if they’re meeting or exceeding their client’s expectations? Keeping a finger on the pulse of your company’s customer service performance must go beyond simply asking clients if they’re happy. Measuring your company’s ability to deliver great customer experiences should involve allowing homeowners to be completely candid with you, analyzing their feedback and creating actionable steps to improve your relationship with them.

Terry Stamman, co-owner of Twin Cities Siding Professionals, knows a thing or two about gauging customer satisfaction. He’s been doing it for his St. Paul, Minn., exterior remodeling business since 2009. Throughout the past five years Stamman has kept a close eye on his company’s customer satisfaction trends and considers their recommendation rate to be the one metric in particular that’s the ultimate indicator of a job well done.

“We hold our likely to recommend rate as the gold standard of our business,” he says. “It’s incredibly important to us because we genuinely care about how our customers feel. When homeowners are willing to recommend us to friends and family, it makes our team proud because it reaffirms for us that we’re a good business.”

Twin Cities Siding is recommended by 99% of more than 400 customers. The company surveys customers at the end of every project to determine their “likely to recommend” rate and get a better understanding of how they’re performing in more specific areas of project performance.

“Whenever a customer survey comes in, our whole team drops whatever they’re doing to see the results. That’s how important it is to us,” Stamman says. “Our company culture demands customer satisfaction. It’s highly embarrassing to every one of us if a customer responds to a survey question with anything less than agree or strongly agree.”

How Twin Cities Siding’s customers rate the team’s performance on jobsite cleanup and communication is something Stamman watches especially closely. Those two aspects he considers to be potential “silent killers” that could impact whether a homeowner would recommend his business. Jobsite cleanup is something he particularly emphasizes with his crew as it’s typically a client’s last impression of their business.

“We know that after we’re gone, the product that’s left flavors our customers’ feelings for the long-term,” he says. “The last thing I want to hear someone say about our company is, ‘They were great, but…’ If the product on the wall looks flawless, but there is a mess underneath, we’ve left an opening for a less than 100% satisfied customer.”

If a low customer survey score or customer review comes through, Stamman and team take action.

“Whenever there is a complaint or low score, the person or persons responsible are contacted to ascertain their view,” he says. “We then contact the homeowner to apologize and let them know we will return for another sweep through their yard.  Even one nail or piece of debris is too much.”

Twin Cities Siding has come to know what other remodeling service excellence leaders like them understand: Investing in establishing strong relationships with customers through measuring their satisfaction ultimately leads to establishing a successful business. —Erica England

Erica England is marketing manager at GuildQuality, the leading provider of customer satisfaction surveying and performance reporting for the North American residential construction industry. For more information, visit GuildQuality’s website.