Duane Hicks
District businesses were in the spotlight yesterday evening as the Rainy River Future Development Corp. unveiled the winners of its 2009 Customer Service Champion awards during the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce’s “Business After Hours” deck party at La Place Rendez-Vous.
This year’s top 10 champions were (in alphabetical order) Cloverleaf Grocery (Emo), Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Fort Frances Clinic Dispensary, Fort Frances General Supply, Northern Community Development Services (NCDS), Northern Lights Credit Union (Rainy River branch), Northridge Funeral Home (Emo), Revco Carpet Centre, Super 8 Motel, and Wood’s Quality Bakery (Rainy River).
Honourable mentions went to Celeste’s, Crozier Warehouse-Busy Bee Auto Glass, Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, Vianet Internet Solutions, and Warehouse One—The Jean Store.
Plaques and certificates were handed out by RRFDC director George Emes.
Some 28 businesses from across the district participated in the program this year.
The call for participants went out back in February, at which time businesses volunteered to get involved.
Most hailed from Fort Frances, but a few were from Emo, Rainy River, and Stratton.
Things were done a little differently this year as the RRFDC hired Wanda Botsford as a consultant to co-ordinate and fine-tune the shopping surveys and scoring.
“Secret shoppers” went to the participating businesses in March and April, with each business being shopped three times.
In addition to how well the staff interacted with customers, evaluations also looked at areas like accessibility for customers and whether or not the business had a “green” focus.
A telephone shopping survey and a website review also were included the evaluation process, Botsford explained to those on hand for the awards presentation.
These tested employee telephone skills, how long it took for businesses to get messages (phone or e-mail) back to customers, whether or not the business did home deliveries, and similar details.
Customer service survey results will be sent out to participants next month so they be able to tell how they did.
This is the sixth year for the RRFDC’s customer service program, the purpose of which is to let local businesses gauge their level of customer service, as well as figure out how and where they can make improvements.
