Duane Hicks
Sign up by
April 15
Think your business offers excellent customer service? How about letting the customers decide?
That’s the idea behind the Rainy River Future Development Corp.’s 2011 customer service challenge, this year dubbed the 2011 Customer Service “People’s Choice” Online Challenge.
The RRFDC has changed the way the challenge works, now leaving the voting up to customers instead of using “secret shoppers” to gather information on the participating businesses.
RRFDC officer manager Cynde Milette said the push right now is to get district businesses signed up prior to the Friday, April 15 deadline.
They can do so by calling the RRFDC at 274-3276 or e-mailing info@rrfdc.on.ca
Participation is free, and all district businesses within the RRFDC’s catchment area—from Mine Centre west to Rainy River, and north to Morson and Nestor Falls—are encouraged to sign up.
It doesn’t matter the size of the business.
Once registered, businesses will get an information package telling them what they need to know about the challenge.
Participating businesses will be listed online, and the RRFDC will advertise for a couple of weeks who is signed up to build up to when voting begins Tuesday, May 3 (the day after the federal election).
Voting will take place online, where the public will have a couple of weeks to be able to vote for businesses which they feel provide top-notch customer service.
“The point is: ‘Here’s all the people that have signed up. Why don’t you go out and shop for a couple weeks and you can be our mystery shoppers and then you can vote,’” explained Milette.
She admitted not everyone is going to go out and shop with this goal in mind, but some people might.
Milette noted participating businesses also can get creative in how they get their votes, such as giving leaflets which say, “Remember to vote for us,” to their customers after a transaction.
“We’re going to work with the businesses to figure all of that out,” she remarked.
Those who vote can only do so once, but can pick up to three customer service challenge participants.
Voters also will be required to provide an explanation as to why they voted for their selections—even if it is brief.
“Their vote won’t count unless there’s something in the ‘comment’ section,” Milette stressed.
Once the voting closes, the top 10 businesses will be determined. The winners likely will be announced in late May during the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce’s annual “After Hours” deck party.
Milette said the RRFDC had been planning to change up its customer service challenge for a few years now, wanting to “keep it fresh.”
“If it doesn’t work, then we’ll try something else next year,” she reasoned.
