Third-party customer survey service

While survey firms do big business among big builders, most remodelers keep their customer satisfaction research in house. One of the main reasons: cost. If you're looking for a free way to find out what customer surveys can reveal about your remodeling business, visit www.guildquality.com.

Atlanta-based GuildQual-ity offers a 17-question survey that clients can take via the Internet, telephone or mail. If you sign up for the free basic service, you must contact your customers, and the survey must be completed online. Guild-Quality's password-protected, Web-based application allows you to view the response rate and details of each survey.

For paid subscribers, Guild-Quality contacts your clients, automatically updates data and provides analysis of results. Paying users can compare results against the aggregate data of their peers, sorted by annual number of jobs, geography and type of work.

GuildQuality founder and CEO Geoff Graham says the firm has more than 70 members, mostly in the Southeast. Each completed survey costs $60, or you can pre-purchase in bulk and reduce price. Buying 100 completed surveys costs $2,600, or $26 each.