Winners of 2003 National Housing Quality Award Use Same Customer Satisfaction Research Firm
NRS Corporation
October 16, 2002

Madison, WI - Three winners of the 2003 National Housing Quality (NHQ) Awards have one thing in common: all rely on customer satisfaction research from NRS Corporation of Madison, WI. History Maker Homes (NHQ Gold), Neumann Homes (NHQ Silver), and Grayson Homes (NHQ Honorable Mention), all clients of NRS, were presented with their awards October 12 in Boston during the annual Professional Builder Benchmark Conference.

Sponsored by the National Association of Home Builders (NAHB) and Professional Builder magazine, the NHQ Award is the most prestigious accolade in the home building industry. Patterned after the Malcolm Baldrige Award for excellence in industrial performance, the NHQ Award honors home building companies that achieve the highest standards in product and customer-focused quality. Having a successful system in place for understanding and achieving exemplary levels of customer satisfaction is a paramount determinant for winning the NHQ Award.

NRS Corporation is the U.S. home building industry's leading provider of customer satisfaction research. The programs offered by NRS include benchmark comparisons against regional and national averages for various categories of customer satisfaction. NRS conducts surveys of all of its clients' homebuyers, analyzes the results and provides each homebuilding client with regular reports detailing the results.

"NRS has been our research partner for several years," stated Nelson Mitchell, Jr., president of NHQ Gold Award winner History Maker Homes of Fort Worth, Texas, during a talk he gave at the Benchmark Conference.

"They have provided us with invaluable insights into how our customers are perceiving us and the homes we build for them. We could not have accomplished the levels that we have without a top-notch system in place for collecting and analyzing our customers' feedback."

NRS was hired by History Maker Homes in 1995 to oversee all of the home building company's customer satisfaction research operations. Winner of the 2003 NHQ Silver Award and 1998 NHQ Gold Award, Neumann Homes of Warrenville, Illinois has been an NRS client since 1996. Grayson Homes of Ellicott City, Maryland and 2003 NHQ Honorable Mention became a client of NRS in 2001. NRS has also provided research services to other NHQ Award-winning homebuilders since the research company's inception in 1993.

With the largest builder database in the U.S. home building industry, NRS provides research services to over 200 production builders nationwide. Companies range in size from fewer than 50 closings per year to nearly 20,000. NRS employs research methodologies similar to that used to establish the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI).

A multi-nationally accepted system, the ACSI measures customer satisfaction in major industries such as auto manufacturing, air travel and government. In these industries the ACSI has shown a direct positive correlation between customer satisfaction and company profitability.

Through its research in the home building industry NRS has also shown a positive relationship between customer satisfaction and company profitability. This relationship is due in large part to the nature of how the home building industry has evolved over the last few decades.

"Home buyers are more service-conscious than ever," explains Paul Cards, NRS Corp. founder, president and CEO. "Where high-quality of construction and materials were once the hallmark of a successful home building company, today's builders also need to focus on processes that make their customers feel good about the relationships they have with their builders. This goes beyond workmanship, extending into multiple levels of customer service at numerous points throughout the builder/customer relationship, and often after the actual closing date of the home.

"The highly-competitive housing market requires builders to differentiate themselves from their competition any way possible. With interest rates yielding new home ownership more affordable than it's been in decades, builders are positioning themselves to maximize their shares of the new home construction market." Mr. Cardis adds,

"Customer satisfaction is a primary focus in today's home building industry, yet the focus does more than benefit the customer. Builders who employ systems of measurement and analysis, and share those results with employees regularly inherently create cultures within their companies that promote teamwork and nurture workplace cohesiveness. As a result, employees are more in-tune with their objectives and how they relate to those of the organization.

"Company-wide endeavors to maximize customer satisfaction have consistently shown that the achievement gratifies the whole team. This is another area where the focus on customer satisfaction becomes a win-win situation for both the customer and the company staff. Clearly understood objectives can enhance an employee's productivity on the job. Successful companies know this, and they work very hard to get there. Research programs like ours are a means by which to accomplish that end."

Another major factor in determining which building companies deserve the NHQ Award is operational excellence, of which customer satisfaction is, again, inherently vital. Customer satisfaction is linked to profitability, therefore without an effective system to measure and track customer satisfaction most companies have difficulty developing strategies to maximize the profitability of their customers. Maximized profitability of the existing homebuyer is realized in the form of referrals to friends and family, and eventual repeat business. Referral business also affects marketing costs, as word-of-mouth and favorable reputations tend to generate more sales. Many companies with high levels of customer satisfaction have lower per-customer advertising costs.

Sean Boyce, NRS Corp. Senior Vice President adds, "A customer-centric approach in all areas of business is essential to managing the gravity of the whole organization. The latest winners of the NHQ Awards understand this. A true focus on the customer requires companies to also focus on their employees and the processes they follow.

"Customer satisfaction research is a tool for identifying those areas where individuals and processes can have the greatest impact on the success of the organization. Having studied their companies' research results, the NHQ Award winners demonstrate how well they know that their longevity and prosperity depend on it."

Founded in 1993, NRS is a leading provider of market research services to home building companies throughout the U.S. and Canada.

NRS corporate offices are at 5930 Seminole Centre Ct., Madison, WI 53711. For more information about NRS, please contact Anthony DeMarte at 608.273.4665, or at ademarte@nrscorp.com.