Customer service challenge draws 35

With the deadline having elapsed Friday, the Rainy River Future Development Corp. has a total of 35 district businesses participating in its fifth-annual customer service challenge.
“The last couple days, they’ve been coming in,” program co-ordinator Crystal Godbout said late Friday. “We reached 29, and I was excited. We reached 30, and it was great.
“And then it slowly climbed to 35. I’m happy with that.”
Godbout noted any business within the RRFDC’s catchment area (from Mine Centre west to Rainy River, and north to Morson and Nestor Falls) can get involved in the free program—whether they’ve done it before or are first-timers.
She was pleased to see a mix participating this time around.
“There is, of course, the repeats, the ones that sign up every year, but I do have some new ones signed up this year, too,” she noted. “I think it’s great.
“We also got some from Emo and Rainy River, so that was a big bonus,” Godbout added. “It was nice to see some businesses participating from across the district—I like to have a good cross-section like that.
“It would have been nice to have more from further west, but we’re happy with what we’ve got.”
The participating businesses now will be contacted by the RRFDC and then “mystery shopped” by a confidential, independent committee.
Godbout said the mystery shopping will take place in March and April. Each business gets shopped three different times by three different people.
These shoppers will rate the businesses’ customer service using standardized forms which are revised each year, noted Godbout.
After the RRFDC gets those forms back, it will tally them up, review the comments, and then pick the top 10 from across the district, also noting honourable mentions.
The winners likely will be announced in May during a Chamber of Commerce mix-and-mingle, as they were last year.
After the winners are announced, Godbout said all the participants (regardless of how they do) will get access to their performance evaluations so they can find out where their strengths and weaknesses lie when it comes to serving customers.
A total of 32 businesses from across the district participated in the program last year.