The Rainy River Future Development Corp. will name the winners of its 2006 Customer Service Champion Awards tomorrow evening (May 17) at La Place Rendez-Vous.
“We think the program went very well this year. There was 38 businesses from across the district that participated,” customer service program co-ordinator Crystal Godbout noted this week.
“It’s less than we had last year but we changed the way everybody had to sign up,” she said. “Last year, you could sign up any business you thought had good customer service.
“This year, the business could only sign themselves up.”
This is the third 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 in the program 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 and April.
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.
While only the top 10, and some honourable mentions, will be named tomorrow evening, all 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.
Tomorrow evening’s announcement will coincide with the Chamber of Commerce’s “Business After Hours” annual deck party, which will run from 5-7:30 p.m. at the Rendez-Vous.
This event will feature free food, a cash bar, and draw prizes.
A total of 74 businesses from across the district participated in the program last year.
The top 10 “Customer Service Champions” were (in alphabetical order) Cloverleaf Shop Easy, Energy Motivation Fitness Centre, Fort Frances Chiropractic Centre, Gagné Pharmacy, Mark’s Work Wearhouse, Northwoods Gallery & Gifts, Peterson’s Food Town, Pharmasave, Sears/Rainy River Duty-Free, and The Great Bear.
Honourable mentions went to The Corner Closet, Dairy Queen, Edward Jones, Fort Frances General Supply, Holmlund Financial, La Place Rendez-Vous, Norlund Oil, Super 8 Motel, Tim Hortons, and Tompkins Hardware.
Eighteen of the 74 participating businesses were from the west end of the district.
The challenge is free to all businesses in Rainy River District—no matter how large or small.
(Fort Frances Daily Bulletin)
Fort Frances Times
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