Duane Hicks
Voting ended Friday for the Rainy River Future Development Corp.’s 2011 Customer Service “People’s Choice” Online Challenge, with the top 10 winners to be named next Wednesday (May 25).
Since May 3, the public could go to www.rrfdc.on.ca and vote once for their choice of the top three businesses offering the best customer service, as well as provide a brief comment on why those three earned their vote.
Voting closed Friday at 4 p.m.
“We had approximately 250 people vote, which is pretty good,” noted RRFDC officer manager Cynde Milette.
“We’ve got the top 10 compiled and so we’re getting the plaques made up,” she added.
The winners then will be announced next Wednesday during the Fort Frances Chamber of Commerce’s annual “After Hours” deck party from 5-7 p.m. at La Place Rendez-Vous. The award will be announced at 6 p.m.
This year’s challenge drew 28 contenders, including (in alphabetical order) Belluz Concrete & Rentals, Boston Pizza, Brockie’s Jewellers, Causeway General Insurance Brokers Ltd., Celeste’s, Cloverleaf Family Foods, Fort Frances Enhanced Hearing Centre, Fort Frances General Supply, Fort Frances Times Ltd., and Green’s Countrywide Furniture.
Also vying for the title were Kupila’s Sound Centre, La Place Rendez-Vous, Leon’s, Maddy’s Little Store, McTaggarts, Naughty Pine Riding Ranch, Norlund Oil (2003) Ltd., Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, Peterbilt Fort Frances, and Pharmasave.
Simplicity Professional Hair & Body Care, Studio Gibbous, Super 8 Motel, Taggs Source for Sports, The Den, The Ear Clinic, Inc., Times Web Design; and West End Motors rounded out the contenders.
This year’s challenge was different than years past, which were conducted using a “secret shopper” visiting the participating businesses and marking them on their customer service.
Milette said the RRFDC will be looking to get feedback from the participants to gauge how well the challenge went and what will need to be tweaked for 2012.
“We promoted the challenge, and I thought we did that really well, and then it was up to the businesses to promote themselves,” she noted.
“So we’re trying to figure out if the top 10 reflects who promoted themselves.
“We’ll talk to the businesses and find out what they think after they see who the top 10 is,” added Milette.
