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What 30 Years of Feedback Taught Us About Homeowners

What 30 Years of Customer Feedback Taught Us About What Homeowners Actually Want

We have been asking Southwest Florida homeowners what we got right and what we got wrong for 30 years. Our current survey system holds 988 of those answers, and 751 of those people wrote us a paragraph they were never required to write. The thing they praise most is not the glass.

By Bonnie Doughty, Owner and CEO, Glass Design · With Mia, Sales Manager, Erica, VP of Operations, and Scott, Production Manager · 12 October 2026

30 years

Asking customers what we got right and wrong, since 1996

988

Responses in our current survey system

4.9

Average installation score out of 5

84%

Came back perfect in every category

I am Bonnie Doughty, owner of Glass Design. We have been asking our customers how we did since 1996, and acting on the answers is most of the reason this company is still here 30 years later. What people praise most has not changed in all that time: we called when we said we would call, showed up when we said we would show up, and left the entryway cleaner than we found it.

What has changed is how carefully we capture it. Five years ago we built the survey system we use today, which is why I can now count the patterns instead of just remembering them. Here is what 30 years of listening, and 988 measured responses, say about what Southwest Florida homeowners actually want from a door company, including the part we are still not good enough at.

Where these numbers come from

We are not quoting a handpicked wall of testimonials. We have asked customers for feedback at the end of every job for 30 years. For most of that time it lived in phone calls, thank you notes, and conversations at the showroom counter, which is useful but impossible to count. In 2021 we built the survey system we use now, and it has collected 988 responses since.

Here is how it works. When your job is closed out, you get an email and a text asking for feedback. About 75 out of every 100 people answer, and three quarters of them write us actual sentences rather than just clicking stars. We ask you to score four separate things, because a single average hides where a company is weak.

Average scores across all 988 surveys, July 2021 to October 2026

What we ask you to score

Average out of 5

Installation

4.9

Sales experience

4.8

Product quality

4.8

Would you recommend us

4.7

833 of those surveys, roughly 84 percent, came back as a perfect 5 in every single category. The other 16 percent are the ones we learn from, and we get into those below.

After you complete the survey, we also ask you to post publicly on Google, Facebook, Yelp, or Nextdoor. Plenty of people do. Plenty do not, which is exactly why we pay closer attention to the internal surveys. They are the honest version, and nobody is performing for an audience.

What homeowners praise most, in their own words

When I read all 751 written comments looking for patterns, I expected the glass to dominate. It does not. More than half of the comments are about the installation crew and the day they were in your house.

Recurring themes across 751 written survey comments

What they talk about

What it sounds like

The installation crew

55%

“Very professional, clean up like they weren’t there.”

Professionalism

21%

“Professional, courteous, punctual, respectful of property, cleaned up.”

They would recommend us

15%

“Definitely 5 stars!”

How it looks now

12%

“The glass insert is beautiful and adds a classic touch to our home.”

How fast it went

12%

“Process completed in 40 minutes, including clean up.”

Showing up on time

“Installer was on time, explained the process, and cleaned up everything.”

Cleanup

“Left the job as clean as when they came.”

Communication during the wait

“While we experienced a delay, they kept us informed every step of the way.”

The other thing that runs through the comments is light. People tell us the room changed, not the door. One customer had just had a baby and was living behind a solid front door. We added clear glass to it. She called Mia afterward just to say how much brighter the house felt.

Scott, our production manager, has a theory about why install day carries so much weight.

They’re impressed or surprised by how fast we can complete the jobs. Adding an insert could be done in an hour. A whole door transformation in one day.

Scott, Production Manager

A project you waited months for finishes in an afternoon, so the afternoon is what you remember.

My honest read on all of it: almost nothing on that list is exotic. Showing up on time, cleaning up, and calling when we say we will are not advanced skills. They are just rare enough around here that people write paragraphs about them.

Why our reviews are full of first names

About 1 in 10 written comments names at least one of our people. Trevor, Scott, Matt, Fara, Brandon, John, Chris, Mia. Some reviews name four or five of us and walk through the whole project step by step.

Nobody asks customers to do that. Nobody on our team gets a bonus for being mentioned. What it tells me is that on a project that can run 20 weeks or more, people still remember the person who sat with them in the showroom, the person who came out to measure, and the two guys who were in their entryway.

There is a structural reason behind it, and it is worth understanding before you hire anybody for a door project. Our installers are our employees. We do not subcontract installation. A lot of door companies say "our install team" and mean a crew they hired for the week.

That difference shows up in the reviews whether a customer knows the reason or not. Our sales team can promise you exactly how install day will go because the people doing it work here, are trained here, and answer to us. Erica, our VP of operations, puts it more simply than I ever have.

Scott finished her sentence: “And we do it well.”

I think it’s simple why we get such great reviews. We simply just do what we say.

Erica, VP of Operations

One test of whether a crew is really in house: other door companies in this market have asked to use our installers for their own door installs. We have had that conversation more than once.

What our less than perfect reviews have in common

154 of our 988 surveys came back below a perfect 5. I went through all 123 of those that included a written comment, and one theme accounts for more than a third of them: timing.

Long lead time from initial start to final completion. That’s the only reason for a 4 vs a 5 rating.

Glass Design customer survey

That is the honest weak spot, and we would rather you hear it from us. Custom work takes time. A custom iron door can run 20 weeks or more. Custom etched and carved glass takes weeks of its own. Some of our vendors are overseas, which adds variables none of us control.

Erica described what that feels like from the customer’s side better than I could.

Two things we do about it, neither of which fully solves it.

You’ve got a project you’re excited about and the lead time keeps changing and you keep hearing these negative updates. I can understand how that feels.

Erica, VP of Operations

First, we quote long on purpose. Competitors will quote you a shorter lead time to win the job and then miss it. We would rather tell you 12 weeks and deliver in 10 than tell you 6 and deliver in 12. We also build in room to reorder if a product arrives from a vendor with a flaw we will not install.

Second, we stopped making you call us. Every client now has a portal that shows where the project actually is, updated live, viewable at 9am or 9pm. Behind it is an internal report that flags anything approaching its promised date, so we are on the phone with the manufacturer before you have to ask. And if something slips, we call you. We do not wait for you to call us.

The rest of the below 5 comments cluster into smaller groups: price, a hardware or finish detail, a product flaw, a permit timeline. Every one of them triggers the same response, which I describe below.

We talk people out of the bigger sale

This one shows up over and over, and it still catches people off guard.

The gentleman that did measurements saved us from buying a new door as the old one he said was very good, just replace the glass. Excellent, not trying to sell what we didn’t need.

Glass Design customer survey

That is not a sales tactic. It is a standing rule. We live in an area full of new construction where builders install a plain solid door, and homeowners walk into our showroom assuming they need a whole new prehung unit. Often they do not.

Mia, our sales manager, deals with this weekly.

Yes, that is a smaller sale. It is also why those customers come back for the pantry door, and why they send their neighbors.

It’s a new door, it meets code. We’d rather be honest with the client and tell them they don’t need to invest the money into a brand new prehung when we can essentially do what they’d like with just an insert.

Mia, Sales Manager

One thing to be clear about, because it matters for your insurance and your code compliance: on an insert job, the glass insert is impact rated, not the full door unit. If you need a fully impact rated system, that is a replacement conversation, and we will tell you so.

The other surprise is less flattering to our industry. People are startled that we pull a permit. "We are in the business to do it the right way the first time," Mia says. "Unfortunately down here there's a lot of contractors that don't follow the proper protocols." Most homeowners are never told what is required, so when we explain it, it reads as unusual. It should not be.

What we actually do with every survey

Most companies collect feedback and file it. Here is our process, so you can judge it.

Your survey score lands on our company scorecard. It is reviewed the way revenue is reviewed, not filed in an inbox.

If any category comes back below 5, someone calls you. Our design consultants see a low score and walk straight to Mia’s desk asking what happened. Mia is usually the one dialing.

If we got it wrong, we redo it. That is what our 100 percent satisfaction guarantee means: if you are not happy, we do what it takes to make it right, including building the thing again.

If the problem was a process rather than a person, it goes into our weekly meeting and gets taken apart until we find where it broke.

If an expectation was set wrong in the showroom, that goes back to the sales team through an internal channel so the next customer hears the full picture up front.

Two of my favorite examples are jobs that went badly. An installer once cut a full light opening in a door that was supposed to be a partial. The homeowner watched it happen. We had the material in stock, turned it around, and finished the job that same day. He left us a rave review.

Scott had an install where the homeowner was genuinely upset with us for most of the day, watching the noise and dust and not understanding what removing an old door involves. Her husband came home, saw the finished door, and thanked each of our guys individually. He had been watching the whole install on his security cameras with a building inspector friend.

Some of our biggest fans came from jobs that did not go smoothly. A project that goes perfectly tells you nothing about a company. A project that goes sideways tells you everything.

How to read any door company's reviews, including ours

If you are reading reviews right now trying to decide who to call, here is what I would look for. This works on our competitors’ pages as well as ours.

Find the reviews where something went wrong.

You will have to dig. That is the point. A company with nothing but perfect reviews either has very few of them or is curating. What you want is a customer describing a problem and then describing how the company handled it.

Look for first names.

Reviews that name the salesperson, the measurer, and the installers tell you the same people stay on the job. Reviews that only say “the crew” often mean a different crew every week.

Ask directly whether installers are employees or subcontractors.

Many companies say “our install team” and mean neither. Ask who signs their paycheck. This single question explains most of the installation complaints in our market.

Check whether lead times in the reviews match what you were quoted.

If reviewers mention waiting twice as long as they were told, you have your answer about that company’s quoting habits.

Ask who pulls the permit.

For a prehung replacement in Lee or Collier county, a permit and inspection are not optional. If a company is vague about it, that is the whole story.

After 30 years of asking and 988 measured answers, my one sentence version of what homeowners want is not complicated. They want one company to handle the whole thing, and they want that company to do what it said it would do. Scott put it this way when I asked him:

Beginning to end control from one company. They don’t want to involve multiple companies to get the job done.

Scott, Production Manager

That is the entire business. We have beautiful products and a crew I am proud of, but what people write about is follow through.

Questions we get asked about this

Does Glass Design subcontract its installations?

No. Every installer on a Glass Design job is a Glass Design employee, trained in house and accountable to us. This is the most common question we get from homeowners who have been burned before, and it is the reason most of our reviews mention the install crew by name.

How long will I have to wait for my door?

It depends entirely on the product. A custom iron door can run 20 weeks or more. Other custom work runs shorter. We quote on the long side on purpose, because we would rather beat a date than miss one. Your clock starts once selections are final and the contract is signed, and that window includes pulling the permit, which we handle for you.

What is the most common complaint in your reviews?

Lead time. More than a third of our written feedback below 5 stars mentions timing. Custom work takes time, some of our vendors are overseas, and dates occasionally move. We now give every client a portal showing live project status so you are not waiting on a phone call to find out where things stand.

If I only need glass, will you tell me, or will you sell me a whole door?

We will tell you. If your existing door is in good shape and meets code, an insert often gets you what you want for less. Our design consultants do this every week, and it shows up repeatedly in our survey comments. Be aware that on an insert job the glass insert is impact rated, not the full door unit, so if you need a fully impact rated system we will say so.

What happens if I am not happy with the finished job?

We call you first. Any survey that comes back below 5 stars in any category triggers a phone call from our team. If we got it wrong, our 100 percent satisfaction guarantee means we make it right, up to and including rebuilding the product. If the cause was a broken process, it goes into our weekly meeting until we fix it for the next customer.

Do you pull the permit, or do I?

We do. For a prehung replacement in Lee or Collier county, a permit and inspection are required, and we handle both as part of the project. Homeowners are often surprised by this, which tells you something about how commonly it gets skipped around here.

Come see it in person

Both showrooms are open, and you do not need an appointment. Bring a photo of your entry and we will tell you honestly whether you need a new door or just new glass.

Fort Myers showroom

Schedule Appointment

Naples showroom