VANCOUVER, B.C. — July 15, 2010 Canadian consumers will soon have access to objective
customer satisfaction benchmarks on home builders and renovators thanks to a new program from the Canadian
Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia (CHBA BC). AVID Ratings, an industry leader in
measuring customer experience and loyalty, will administer the voluntary National Customer Loyalty Benchmarking
Program, which will begin by measuring customer satisfaction for the association’s venerable Customer
Choice and Georgie Awards®.
“Until now, there has not been a set standard or centralized place that consumers could refer,
in order to learn about a company’s customer satisfaction ratings,” says Bob Deeks, President
of the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia (CHBA BC). “This program
will be a great asset not only for consumers, but also for the industry. Now builders, developers and
renovators will be able to see how they measure against their peers and use this information in improving
their own customer service delivery programs.”
The new benchmarking program will factor in many aspects of the customer experience, including: product
satisfaction, service satisfaction, pre- and post-sales service, and warranty fulfillment. The program
will be launched via CHBA BC’s Customer Choice Awards, a component of the Georgie Awards®.
Founded in 1992, the Georgie Awards® (www.georgieawards.ca)
has become Canada’s premier housing awards program, highlighting and celebrating excellence in
home building. In 2007, CHBA BC integrated the Customer Choice Awards into the Georgie Awards® program.
Winners of these awards are chosen solely on the basis of the ratings received from the homebuilders’
customers, and the results comprise 40 percent of the total judging score for the Grand Georgie Awards®.
“We are proud to partner with CHBA BC on this valuable program,” says Paul Cardis, Chief
Executive Officer of Avid Ratings. “We have clearly seen how this kind of holistic tool raises
the bar for customer service delivery and improves the professionalism of the industry overall.”
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About AVID Ratings
Founded in 1993, AVID is a full-service customer loyalty management firm, providing customer loyalty
research, organizational strategies, employee training, and proprietary solutions to the home building
industry. Since 2003, AVID’s team has been working with leading Canadian home builders to improve
referrals, margins, and long-term customer loyalty. Today, with more than 50 Canadian and 200 U.S. home
building clients, AVID Canada and AVID Ratings are the leading providers of customer loyalty management
services in North America. In 2010, AVID Ratings launched
AvidBuilder.com (AvidBuilder™), a content-rich and ad-free resource of unbiased housing
news and information.
About CHBA BC
Founded in 1967, the Canadian Home Builders’ Association of British Columbia (www.chbabc.org) is the voice of the residential construction industry
in British Columbia. Comprising more than 1,700 builder, renovator, and supplier companies, CHBA BC
supports an effective, well-trained, professional industry that ensures sustainable, well-built, affordable
housing for all British Columbians. CHBA BC manages several leading industry programs, including the
Georgie Awards®, BuiltGreen™ BC and the Canadian Home Builders’ Institute, and engages
government and industry through nine regional local offices in British Columbia and a national office
in Ottawa.
