Tarion has announced the 2016 Homeowners’ Choice Awards recipients, as chosen by Ontario’s new home buyers. These are the only awards that focus exclusively on customer service, and let the buyers decide who should shine, Tarion said in news release.
Winners are:
- The Daniels Corporation and The Tricar Group – High-Rise Category (tied)
- Tribute Communities – Large Volume Category
- LEMAY Homes – Maisons LEMAY – Medium Volume Category (first time finalist and recipient)
- Kolody Homes – Small Volume Category (first time finalist and recipient).
“Today’s best companies know that positive reviews by real customers are the key to success,” said Tarion president and CEO Howard Bogach. “The Homeowners’ Choice Awards, presented by Tarion, recognize that when it comes to defining success in the province’s residential building industry the voice of the homeowner matters. Being attentive, responsive and listening to home buyers is what makes these builders rise above their peers.”
Formerly known as the Tarion Awards of Excellence, the Homeowners’ Choice Awards are the result of thousands of new home buyers’ being polled across the province annually.
Anyone that moved into a new home between Oct. 1, 2014 and Sept. 30, 2015 was offered the chance to rate their builder by filling out a survey. Out of more than 56,000 invitations to participate, an impressive 21 per cent of new home buyers participated. This translated into nearly 12,000 responses that were tabulated by Crunch Research and Nielsen.
The survey asks homeowners to share their opinions of their builders’ customer service delivery. Home buyers are asked to evaluate every customer service touch-point in the new home buying process The questions are all centred on customer service delivery.
“Tarion has been working with builders and homeowners for the past 40 years,” Bogach said in the news release. “This insight has taught us that builders who make customer service a priority create a positive home buying experience that leads to happy, satisfied home buyers. The Homeowners’ Choice Awards show that almost every builder can have a chance to be recognized – from small to large, and new to established. It’s all about how a builder chooses to focus on their customers.”
To qualify for the awards, builders must have had at least five new home possessions during the survey timeframe and a specified number of completed questionnaires must be returned.