Thousands of business owners and executives participate in peer groups, typically comprised of six to eight people who meet every 6 months. The goal is to drive business by learning from each other and to leave with fresh ideas from a respected source. Usually the best-run businesses in their industry participate in peer groups because these owners continue to invest in themselves and their business, and they are open to criticism, objective feedback and fresh ideas. Each member benefits from:

*Learning what others are doing.
*Leaving with fresh ideas.
*Being held accountable for results
*Networking and cultivating friendships with successful people.
*Trending and driving performance over time.
*Hearing candid feedback and opinions from industry experts.
*Specific, expert advice from owners dealing with the same issues.

Standardizing Customer Loyalty Metrics

Most peer groups standardize on reports to pinpoint opportunities for improvement and growth. Many use benchmarks similar to those published by their industry; benchmarks such as wages, pricing, and financial benchmark studies. The best peer groups benchmark customer loyalty and share at each meeting a standardized SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) based on customer feedback. Benefits of implementing customer feedback into peer groups include:

*Customer-centered goal setting.
*Increasing customer loyalty levels with all members of the group.
*Challenging peer group members to drive improvements based on facts.
*Disciplined, focused discussions around marketing, customer service and sales efforts
*Quantified, fact-based decision making tied to customer needs.

Standardize on the customer loyalty question(s), the way customer feedback is obtained and how it will be shared. Make each owner responsible for bringing one improvement area and one opportunity for growth identified from customer feedback. Each owner brings his or her customer loyalty scores to the meeting, and those scores are displayed, side by side, to help during discussions.

We all stress how important loyalty is to our survival and growth, yet we know we can do a better job measuring, monitoring and leveraging customer information in a disciplined, deliberate way. Standardizing on how customer feedback is shared during peer group meetings and setting better, customer-centered goals is one more way best-in-class businesses continue to distance themselves from their competitors.

Survey Advantage is conducting a mortgage banking benchmark study to measure the quality of service delivered to borrowers and referral partners (loan officers and realtors). The industry report will be publish on December 15th following the collection of feedback from borrowers and referral partners right after a loan is closed. The pilot will be run with 40 mortgage businesses or business units and 10 Title and Closing businesses.

Timeline: September 1 through December 1, 2010

Pilot Goals

* Benchmark customer loyalty for both borrowers and referral partners
* Benchmark service quality such as meeting deadlines, offering advice, communication:
* Improve industry performance through objective benchmarking
* Demonstrate the value of an effective post-closing surveying to drive performance
* Benchmark performance based on company size and structure

What should participants expect?

On December 15th, 2010 Survey Advantage will publish the benchmark report. . Each participating business will receive the following:

* Month to month and quarterly scores compared to the benchmark
* Ongoing real time reporting throughout the study
* Individual surveys immediately upon submission
* Online dashboard to view individual and combined survey scores.
* Immediate alerts whenever a customer rates you negatively for quick response.
* Consulting on questions, survey delivery, and driving response rates.
* Complete management of the surveying process

How to participate?

Mortgage brokers, bankers, and title & closing businesses will either send Survey Advantage a monthly loan transaction report or e-mail our survey after each closings. Survey Advantage will work with each business to ensure the process is customized to their business, easy to execute, yet standardized where necessary for benchmark purposes. Each business will approve the survey layout, email invitations, and questions prior to execution of the process. Survey Advantage will do the rest. A professional survey will be delivered via e-mail to all borrowers and referral partners. Survey Advantage typically averages 30% response rates on borrower transaction surveys. View On-demand Demo.

Qualification Guidelines and Sign-up Process

Participating businesses or business locations must
*Generate at least 40 loan transactions a month (Banks & Brokers)
*Generate at least 25 loan transactions a month (Title and Closing)
*Be capable of emailing the loan transaction file the first week of each month or e-mailing the Survey Advantage survey link after closings.

We prefer to launch the survey to monitor response rates and drive the process. This benchmark study is free of charge for the first 40 mortgage banking or broker locations and 10 title and closing businesses participating. For additional businesses or business locations beyond the numbers above, the price is $350 to participate.

When signing up we will categorize participants into different categories to enhance benchmarks to compare like business models. We will need to know the following

* Banker, Broker, Title/Closing Business
* # of loans per month
* # of employees / # of loan officers
* # of locations
* Centralized (call center) or Decentralized (retail)
* % refinance / % purchase loans
* Annual loan value per year

The online sign-up form includes important information for benchmarking.

To participate, please contact Michael Casey of Survey Advantage directly at 401-560-0311 ext 103 or mcasey@surveyadvantage.com.

We are asked quite often to create a quote follow-up survey. We are asked to launch the survey to all open quotes that were sent out between x and y days before. It is a great idea, but response rates are very low. It is one thing for a customer to share after buying a service or product from you, but what is in it for a prospect or customer to tell you that they did not buy from you because they got a better deal, found a more perfect fit, you messed them up before, or they decided not to buy. Will they really click a survey link and fill out a form? I think it must be easier and more straightforward than that. Don’t make them jump threw even a little hoop to give you feedback on quotes.

The best way to follow up on quotes it either to call them directly. If you don’t have the resources then send out a simple, to the point e-mail blast. Smaller businesses sometimes have a difficult time following up on quotes so I recommend a very simple, personal, direct email Leverage your estimating and quoting software to pull all “open quotes” for a date range. Leverage the fields you have in your estimating system to use variable data and personalize the mass follow-up eblast.

Dear (first name),

This is a follow-up to the quote we sent to you on (quote date). Thank you for giving us the opportunity. We are very excited to work with you, but have not heard anything. Could you please give an update or status? Thank you.

Sincerely,
Your name
Title
Phone
Website.

Nothing fancy. It should be short, to the point, and ask the one question. You already quoted and maybe spent time with them understanding requirements for the work. Now is the time for them to decide or engage. Nothing is more effective than calling, but in these economic times you may not have that luxury and may need to batch process in a disciplined, automated way using technology.