The Rainy River Future Development Corp. named the winners of its 2007 Customer Service Champion Awards yesterday evening at La Place Rendez-Vous.
This year’s top picks (in alphabetical order) included Energy Fitness Centre, Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Fort Frances General Supply, New Life Clinic, and Norlund Oil (2003) Ltd.
Rounding out the 10 winners were Northridge Funeral Home, Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, Shoppers Home Health Care, Super 8 Motel, and Warehouse One.
Businesses receiving honourable mentions included Curves for Women, Drs. Lidkea, Elliott & Lidkea, Global Gaming, Green’s Countrywide Furniture, and Kreger Sales & Service.
McTaggarts, NCDS Career Works, Shoppers Drug Mart, Skills & Employment Source, and The Corner Closet rounded out that list.
The winners were revealed during the Chamber of Commerce’s “Business After Hours” annual deck party.
Crystal Godbout, co-ordinator of the customer service program, said the winners will be recognized several times throughout the rest of the year, such as during Small Business Week and at the Chamber’s annual business awards banquet in the fall.
Godbout noted a total of 32 businesses from across the district participated in the program this year.
“It was a little bit less than what we had last year. I think we had 38 or 39 [in 2006],” she said. “But other than that, it seemed to go fine.
“The shoppers were out there and I’ve had no negative comments from any of the businesses or anything like that.”
All the businesses that participated, whether or not they made the top 10 or received an honourable mention, will be getting back their surveys mailed out to them this week, Godbout added.
They’ll be able to utilize the comments to find out where they had good service and where they could improve, she noted.
Regardless of their results this year, any business is welcome to sign up for the Customer Service Challenge when it’s held again early next year.
This is the fourth year for the RRFDC’s Customer Service Champion program, the purpose of which is to let businesses gauge their level of customer service in order to figure out how and where they can make any improvements.
The call for participants went out in February, at which time businesses volunteered to get involved.
The RRFDC then contacted the participants and told them they would be “mystery shopped” three times by three different people in March, April, and again earlier this month.
These shoppers rated the businesses’ customer service using standardized forms which are revised each year. Then they reported back to the RRFDC, which calculated the scores.
The challenge is free to all businesses in Rainy River District—no matter how large or small.
Fort Frances Times
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