<b><b>The latest National Customer Satisfaction Survey reveals an ongoing problem with customer service. Over the next five pages, Steve Menary looks at the keys to good service and how you can improve your operation. He starts by unearthing the secret of the firms who - for the second time in a row - excelled in the survey</b></b><br><b>The major housebuilders spend thousands of pounds a year on boosting their reputations, so achieving a good result in the National Customer Satisfaction Survey (NCSS) should have been a priority.</b><br><b>Instead, the recent publication of the second NCSS survey was like watching a re-run of the time-slip comedy, Groundhog Day.</b><br><b>For the second year in a row, a handful of regional firms with burgeoning reputations left many of the national firms with red faces.</b><br><b><b>small is beautiful</b></b><br> Out of the 54 housebuilders featured in the survey, just six were rated above industry average in all of the seven categories - Bloor, Croudace, Jelson, Midland and General, Rivermead and Roland Bardsley. None of these, clearly, is one of the big players. So why are housebuilders that often have no real profile outside of their own particular operating area consistently providing better satisfaction to the public than their larger …