The Glass Guru - NGA's May Member-of-the-Month

The Glass Guru (NGA member since 2007) was established in mid-2004 in Roseville, California. Pioneering new window restoration technologies, The Glass Guru was the first in the U.S. to offer the groundbreaking service of moisture removal for failed dual-pane windows. With over 25,000 windows successfully restored, the process has saved their residential and commercial customers millions of dollars in replacement costs and has prevented thousands of windows from going to landfills. With locations in 26 states, 2 Canadian provinces and growing, The Glass Guru is only U.S.-based national organization currently offering this green and money-saving service.

For windows with hard water staining or scratches, the company utilizes the latest surface restoration technologies to remove minor to severe damage. Over years of testing and refinement, The Glass Guru has developed advanced products and techniques that can effectively restore windows with exterior glass damage to like new condition at a fraction of the cost of replacement. When it comes to glass and window restoration, no one compares to The Glass Guru.

Offering glass and window replacements since early 2006, The Glass Guru has truly become a one-stop solution for all of its customers' residential and commercial glass and window needs. Its full-service locations also offer screens, shower enclosures, mirrors, table tops, doors and a number of other specialty products like soundproof glass and custom pet doors. “We are always looking for new and innovative niches we can capitalize on that are complementary to our other products and services”, says company Founder and CEO Dan Frey.

After years in development, The Glass Guru launched its franchise program in January 2007. Offering the best of its cutting-edge restorations as well as the more traditional replacement services, our franchise program is a uniquely bundled full-service concept unlike any other. With a positive growth forecast for the glass, window and door industry in the coming years, the Glass Guru Franchise program offers entrepreneurs from any background the opportunity to open their own glass and window restoration and replacement business, utilizing a proven business plan, marketing tools, training and experienced support team to help them achieve their goals.

With over 65 locations across North America is just 5 years, The Glass Guru is one of the fastest growing franchise organizations in the home services industry today. Recently recognized in Entrepreneur Magazine as #12 on their list of the Top New Franchise Companies, the company expects to continue its rapid growth with the goal of becoming the largest, most recognized national brand in market. More information about The Glass Guru can be found at www.TheGlassGuru.com or by e-mailing info@theglassguru.com.

26 Ways to Use Recorded Calls at Your Business

One of the many features that makes LogMyCalls such a powerful tool is call recording. LogMyCalls can record every customer call at your business. But, how could a business use recorded calls? Here are SOME answers: 

1. Get Answers – Your numbers aren’t improving. Your rep sare working hard, they’re on the phone constantly, but nothing’s getting better. Do you know why?
2. Increased Accountability – Tracking sheets and close rates are one thing, actually hearing how your staff sounds on the phone (and allowing them and maybe even their colleagues to hear it) is quite another. You can’t hide from or make excuses for a recorded conversation.
3. Training – Play the calls back for the employee and use those calls to get better. What did your employee do well? How can they improve?
4. Compliance – Ensure that your reps are not misstating company policy or procedure when they’re on the phone.
5. Company Focus – Determine if your employees are effectively communicating what your company is all about. What is your 'big idea?' Do your employees understand that and convey that well? The only way to know for sure is to hear them try to communicate it to an actual customer.
6. Support for Employees – If a customer has a major dispute with an employee or with the company; guess what? The conversation in question is recorded and easily accessible.
7. Teaching Tool – Use the recorded calls in group settings, team meetings and conference calls to demonstrate what to do and what not to do.
8. Feedback in Real-Time – Forget the customer survey. Hear your how your customers react to things your employees say in real-time. Listen to changes in tone and words to gauge how your customers are reacting to your products and services.
9. Unfiltered Feedback – Hear feedback straight from the horse’s mouth. You have the recording when they called to complain. What were they really upset about?
10. Trends – Using our state-of-the–art analytics tools you can data-mine into calls themselves. You can see which reps are closing more calls. You can see why they’re not closing calls. You can even see which elements of the calls are going well and which are not.
11. Competitor Mentions – With LogMyCall's customizable, searchable call tagging features you can dig into the recorded calls and easily find out if your customer is comparing you to competitors and, if so, on what grounds. Are they saying that their pricing is better? Or find out how the customer is using your competitor’s name in the phone call
12. Product Mentions – Ensure your staff is pitching the right products to the right people at the right time. Are they mentioning the special of the month or the week?
13. Understanding Objections – Why aren’t people buying from you? Using LogMyCall's in-depth analytical tools you can isolate calls when the sale didn’t close, and then figure out why it didn’t close. Perhaps there is a pattern to the objections?
14. Upsell – You can isolate calls where you were able upsell a client. Is there a pattern? Why are these calls more successful?
15. Close More Calls - Isolate calls where there was a closed sale. Are those reps doing anything different? Why did those calls close and others didn’t? You can search the data and easily, in moments, find out.
16. Operational Issues – Based on what the client and your sales rep says you can determine what operational or technical issues are recurring (and again, all this is searchable).
17. Questions on a Call – Are your sales reps asking questions on the call? Are they trying to build a relationship? Or are they just talking?
18. Marketing ROI – You can not only see which ad sources are effective (using LogMyCalls tracking numbers) but with the recordings you can hear from the customer why they are effective.
19. When Did They Call – Using basic reports in LogMyCalls you can tell when someone called, see patterns in the time of day, day of week and time of month. When is marketing most effective for you?
20. Where Did They Call From? – So someone say your ad, where did they see it? Determine if there are certain areas of your market where certain marketing tools are more effective.
21. Advertising – You record your customer service calls. This makes you different! This means you can guarantee an employee has to say ‘have a great day’ or offer a specific discount in every call. If they don’t the customer gets a free _______. Advertise that! Advertise that you will hold your employees accountable because you record the calls.
22. Saves Time – There is no need to go back through notes from a conference call or sales call again. Heck, there’s no need to take notes in conference calls or sales calls anymore, you have the call right on your computer. (And LogMyCalls appends the calls directly to a customer record in your CRM).
23. Maintain a High Level of Customer Service - Randomly audit calls. Hold your employees accountable if they aren’t treating your customers well enough.
24. Scoring – Based on industry best practices (or whatever you want to measure) you can score a call for it's effectiveness. We can score the calls for you or you can score them yourself within LogMyCalls. You can score individual elements and sections of a phone call.
25. Call Analytics - Drill down into any data you want. Find out which reps are scoring better than others. Compare reps against each other. Compare locations or departments or against each other. See who's struggling and who's doing well.
26. Hear What Your Customers Hear - What do your reps sound like to them. They're the reason you're in business right? Shouldn't you know what they are hearing?

Every NGA member can receive a FREE 1-year subscription to LogMyCalls.com!* LogMyCalls is a tool created by ContactPoint with the glass industry in mind. It allows businesses to track which marketing methods are generating phone calls and which are not. It also records calls and allows businesses to score calls on customer service and sales performance.  To sign up for your free LogMyCalls account visit logmycalls.com/nga or contact Jimmy Lea, sales@contactpoint.com, 866-811-8880.

*The account is totally FREE for 1 year, but you will be asked for a credit card number during sign up. This is in case you go over the 150 minutes allotted, you will be charged up to 6 cents a minute. You may cancel at any time. Only NGA members who are Main Locations qualify for this offer.

NGA Member Service Announcement - TransWorld Receivables Recovery

It's the start of another month, time to review your aging report and your past-due receivables and do something to collect them before they become old debts with a lower likelihood of recovery. After all, consumers move, businesses get sold or go under, customers memories of what goods and services they purchased and their satisfaction decline over time. The same customers who expressed satisfaction with your products and services at time of sale will often tell you months later (when their bill isn't paid) that they were dissatisfied.

It's a strange human phenomenon.

So, why wait? Receivables depreciate at 15% per month in recoverability. What kind of recovery rate do you want? Are your customers spending the money that is rightfully due you by paying other creditors bills first because your bill is a lower priority to them? Let Transworld help you prioritize your bill to the top of their pile so you get paid next. Don't chase them for weeks or months more, it costs you too much in time and opportunity cost.

Transworld Systems has been in the business of recovering hard earned overdue money for over 40 years. You are in total control, you choose the approach between Pre-Collections, Soft Collections and Hard Collections. All the money is paid directly to you and we collect in a diplomatic manner so you can maintain a good relationship with your customers.

We also provide comprehensive reporting so you can see exactly what is being done on your accounts.

Transworld charges only a flat fee that averages about $10 per account regardless of the balance owed. Be sure to ask about NGA member preferred pricing.

Please visit www.TransworldSystems.com for more information.

What’s the Deal With This FREE NGA LogMyCalls Account?

Perhaps, you are aware by now that all NGA members are receiving a FREE LogMyCalls.com account and free phone number*. You get this free account simply because you are an NGA member. LogMyCalls allows you to track the effectiveness of your marketing, determine which marketing methods generate phone calls, and then actually listen to the calls that come into your business. You can hear how you sound on the phone, hear how your employees handle calls and hear real-time customer feedback.
 
What Do You Get? 

• A FREE toll free phone number or local number with 150 recording minutes
• Vital marketing data that shows you which campaigns are generating phone calls and which are wasting your time and money.
• Free call recording to gauge customer feedback in real-time and improve your ability to sell and book appointments over the phone.
• Advanced Call Routing – This feature allows you to take business calls at home, or on a cell phone, during the evening and on weekends. Additionally, if you have multiple locations you can automatically route callers to the location nearest them. (Cool, huh.)

The most important things you should know:

1. Your new phone number sends calls directly to your business phone number. You specify during sign up where you want new number to ring to.
2. You have to market your number to utilize LogMyCalls. You won’t see any value from LogMyCalls and this free NGA program if you don’t market the phone number. There won’t be any calls within LogMyCalls.com to measure, to record or to route. You could put the phone number on your website, on your fliers, on your Facebook page, on the radio, in the yellow pages or, especially, on your Google Places account. You have to get the number out there where people will call it.
3. This is normally a $29 a month package that you are getting for free for 12 months. This is a gigantic value-add for your NGA members. We hope you will take advantage of it.

Frequently Asked Questions

As we’ve rolled out this FREE NGA LogMyCalls account to our members we’ve had a lot of questions about the account, how it works and what it means for members. Here are some of our questions and the answers.

Is it really free? Yes it is really free for 12 months. The features listed above are totally free for NGA members for 12 months.

Where do I go to Sign Up? Visit http://logmycalls.com/nga or call 866-811-8880 if you have any questions.

What Do I Need To Do? You need to market your free phone number. If no one calls your new number, it won’t do you any good. You need to market your number before you can measure you marketing and hear your recorded calls.

How can I upgrade? If you want more features like call scoring, marketing planning and ROI goals, or if you need more numbers or more minutes to truly track various marketing methods and record more calls just call LogMyCalls at 866-811-8880 or visit http://www.LogMyCalls.com.


*The account is totally FREE for 1 year, but you will be asked for a credit card number during sign up. This is in case you go over the 150 minutes allotted, you will be charged up to 6 cents a minute. You may cancel at any time. Only NGA members who are Main Locations qualify for this offer.

Vos Glass is NGA Member of the Month

Vos Glass, Inc. Knows the Value of Active Participation and Continuous Learning

Vos Glass, Inc. was founded in 1982 by my parents, Jake and Barb Vos, with partners John Merryweather and Nelson Veltman. That same year their fledgling company joined the National Glass Association and the Associated Builders & Contractors, Inc., West Michigan Chapter. They recognized that active participation in trade associations would be helpful to the firm.

During the past thirty years, Vos Glass, Inc. has expanded from commercial projects to offer residential and automotive glass. Our company continues a journey that has always been rewarding, taking us to new levels of achievement and expertise. Participation in trade associations is an important part of our story.

In the early 90s, I believed it was necessary to rally the glass companies in Michigan to tackle issues that faced the industry, specifically pertaining to automotive glass. These actions led to the formation of the Michigan Glass Association (MGA).

At that time, automotive insurance companies imposed restrictions limiting where customers could go for auto glass and collision repairs. This was a key issue for auto glass service providers and body shops and it left customers with a narrow range of options. In 1994, with the help of the MGA, I began a ten-year campaign for state legislation that would ban this practice. Our efforts were rewarded in 2004, when Governor Jennifer Granholm signed the bill into law.

This is an example of the power of a trade association to represent and advocate on behalf of its membership. Working with the MGA, I had far greater impact than I would have had as an individual from a single small business. A strong trade association represents its members to legislators and policy makers. By uniting the voices of the industry, it can accomplish much more than any one person or company.

Trade associations also:

• Represent their members to the public, speaking for the industry about relevant events or emerging trends.
• Enhance the perception of your company as an established, reputable organization, and give you and your staff credibility as professionals who know their stuff.
• Offer you the opportunity to network with and learn from fellow members.
• Open the door to professional development. 

The glass business is increasingly complex, so trade associations help us keep up with the latest developments, legal issues, bidding, new construction techniques and materials, legislation, and business issues. In addition, another organization we are active with, American Subcontactors Association of Michigan (ASAM), hosts an annual Business Practice Interchange, where we have discussions, led by experts, about topics that are of vital interest. 

At Vos Glass, we never stop learning. Our employees receive ongoing education to ensure that every person can bring top-of-the-line skills to his or her job. Our many awards for safety attest to our commitment to a carefully planned program of safety training.  

Trade associations also open up ways to give back to your community and your industry. We’ve recently become involved in ASAM’s Hard Hat Development, an initiative designed to train the next generation of construction workers.  

Linda J. Vos-Graham, president, Vos Glass, Inc.

Chapman Windows & Doors is WDDA Member of the Month

Chapman Windows & Doors began in 1994 as a window and door replacement company. Our business quickly expanded to full-service remodeling, including additions, kitchen and bath, etc.

We found the full-service business unwieldy with costs hard to control. There wasn’t enough repetition to permit economies of scale to develop. Having to contract with plumbers, electricians and HVAC personnel were problems when customer homes were disrupted and they didn’t show! This made us re-evaluate and move back to windows and doors where we could exercise full control with fewer “surprises.”

We opened a showroom so we could give prospects a hands-on “Windows/Doors 101 course”. Our customers can make decisions based upon knowledge instead of advertising. We have several lines of windows and doors on display, along with a wide selection of hardware. We sell no “builder grade” products, but can go from value driven to high-end, luxury products. We offer custom painting or staining of all products we sell. Our customers can purchase a house-full of windows and we will do everything, including re-hanging the drapes.

We extend the use of our showroom to contractors that may want to either send their clients or accompany them. We measure and provide instructions for a DIY’er, if requested. And, we offer installation and repair services for all our products. We will repair products we haven’t sold, under certain conditions.

Our success is driven by a high-level of customer service before the sale and after. We do not pressure our prospects in any way. Instead, we depend on our knowledgeable sales people and reliable products to make the sale. Every job is followed-up with a survey and we offer rewards for referrals.

We are charter members of NARI in this area, but they are more full-service oriented and we were happy that WDDA has come on the scene to give us a voice in those matters specifically oriented toward the windows and door business. Those not in this industry are unaware of the constant changes in both products and legislation effecting us. We need an organization to monitor these changes and represent us.

Mark Chapman
Chapman Windows and Doors