True story. Young guy walks into electronics store ready to buy a good stereo system. Gets such crummy service that he demands to see the manager. Gets no satisfaction. Stomps out fuming, his money still in his pocket. A familiar tale? Sure, but here's the twist. When it happened to 23-year-old University of Manitoba sociology student Tyler Gompf, he didn't just get mad or bother trying to get even. He did something infinitely better.

Eight years later, his resourceful response to shabby treatment is making his company - Winnipeg-headquartered Tell Us About Us (TUAU) - both an enviable Prairies success story and a force to be reckoned with in the North American customer research industry.

Here's how it happened: 'After I left that store,' Gompf recalls, 'I decided there had to be a better way to allow customers to communicate to management and management to establish accountability. So my brother Kirby and I sat down and wrote a computer program to make that possible.'

After about a year at the keyboard, the Gompfs launched their company in 1997, with Tyler as president, Kirby as business development manager, and their friends and fellow U of M grads, Scott Griffith and Brent Stevenson, as additional partners.

Their chosen name, Tell Us About Us, expresses the essence of their approach, which, in a nutshell, invites customers to articulate their opinions about, and experiences with, a given company.

Based on analysis of the resulting data, TUAU then makes strategic recommendations to that client on ways to improve performance.

Asked about his company's startup funds, Gompf laughingly describes 'scraping up a few nickels between us.”

But he says it wasn't long before modest revenue started flowing in from a few smallish local clients.

Then, thanks to electronic serendipity, the fledgling company cracked the U.S. market when a Montana gambling casino in Missoula discovered TUAU on the Internet and engaged its services.

The next big contract was an Arby's franchisee with 60 locations that, says Gompf, 'basically took us under their wing and helped us adapt our program to a franchise model. And from there, we landed a contract with Dairy Queen.'

Next, TUAU began courting the giant American Popeyes Chicken & Biscuits chain, which has more than 1,000 outlets. The deal was clinched after TUAU convinced management it could shave four days off its then-current provider's seven-day reporting turnaround.

'But in order to provide the solution (Popeyes) were looking for,' Gompf says, 'we had to raise significant capital.'

So TUAU approached Ensis Management, a Winnipeg venture capital firm. Says its vice-president, Ken Bicknell: 'We undertook some due diligence and found that they were in fact an exciting little company that was gaining traction in the marketplace.'

He green-lighted an initial investment of $500,000 in 2001 and Ensis has been TUAU's capital partner ever since. 'They've grown very rapidly and they continue to impress me with their ability to adapt and expand in the marketplace,' Bicknell says. 'I anticipate that their company will be very, very successful.'

Judging by TUAU's impressive client list, which is roughly 90 per cent from the U.S., Bicknell's prediction may already be coming true.

Other clients include: Dunkin Donuts, Baskin Robbins, Old Spaghetti Factory, Ben & Jerry's, White Castle restaurants, Ruby Tuesday restaurants, Subway sandwich shops, El Pollo Loco chicken restaurants, American Greetings Corp.'s 600 retail locations, Cap Gemini, American Golf Corp. and Travel Centers of America.

Gompf expects the Canadian client list to be beefed up in the near future because of the opening of a sales office in Toronto earlier this year. Current domestic clients include Farm Credit Canada, CIBC (for branch analysis in Manitoba and Saskatchewan) and SISIP Financial Services (a financial services provider to the Canadian military).

Another of its Canadian clients is Winnipeg's Rice Financial Group, which is one of Canada's largest independent financial services providers. With a network of offices across Western Canada, Rice serves more than 85,000 clients and is responsible for administering assets in excess of $3.5 billion.

The biggest fish TUAU has landed so far, in terms of potential future growth, is Delaware North Companies. About three years ago, after meeting Gompf and his colleagues at a trade show, top management of the international concessions operator, which is headquartered in Buffalo, gave TUAU a contract involving 26 U.S. airports.

Signing a new contract with Delaware North this summer extended TUAU's portfolio into what Gompf calls 'the very desirable entertainment side.”

His company will now be measuring customer responses in concessions operations in all National Football League stadiums in the U.S. as well as other stadiums, ball parks and concert theatres.

So what exactly are all these clients so crazy about? It begins with TUAU's key tool, which is its proprietary and fully scalable Online Knowledge Management Console (KMC) program. Its flexible architecture, Gompf says, enables virtually limitless customization.

The unique computer program facilitates the gathering of customer feedback on each of the touch points that influence a customer's experience, resulting in a clear understanding of the key drivers that build customer loyalty. Information is gathered from several sources, including consumer surveys, 1-800 numbers that customers can call with complaints or inquiries, and secret shoppers.

Mostly thanks to built-in incentives such as a dollar off a customer's next purchase, Gompf says his techniques achieve an average response rate of 20 per cent, which is well above the typical three per cent for more traditional surveys.

Analysis of results in each of a client's locations and regions pays off in the ability to spot trends and monitor response over time. Once the data are gathered and analysed, TUAU personnel swing into action, working hands-on with a client's management team and offering support and resolution services to bridge the gap between strategic insight and action at the front lines. This can extend to recommending incentives and consequences for employees based on results.

Implementing TUAU's advice can range from making complicated, multilevel adjustments to instituting as simple a measure as having staff unfailingly greet customers. 'We've found that engaging people by saying hello has a dramatic effect on how they rate their overall experience,' Gompf says.

Scanning the many glowing testimonials on TUAU's website, it's obvious that the company is doing something right. Typical is a comment from a representative of the El Pollo Loco chain, which is based in Irvine, Calif. 'We're absolutely thrilled with the results that we're getting,' said chief marketing officer Karen Eadon, who noted that acting on TUAU's recommendations is yielding a minimum of 50 additional guests per store per month.

Equally delighted is Tom Liutkus, director of advertising and public relations for Westlake, Ohio-based Travel Centers of America.

In an interview with Business Edge, he said: 'The insights we've derived from TUAU's consultancy have been invaluable because they bring us feedback on improvements we need to make that comes from those we feel can judge them best - the people we serve.

'The other value TUAU brings is its people. They are a very dedicated professional staff who are experts at what they do. And they're fun to work with, which is enormously important in a vendor partner.'

Now bolstered by a staff of 50 in Winnipeg, plus the Toronto sales office and another one that opened in Minneapolis in August, Gompf says his company is poised to grow its operations, 'definitely in Canada and possibly even globally,' in the near future.

No wonder he's amused by a question about whatever became of the store that botched the opportunity to sell him a stereo system. 'Actually,' he says, 'it was part of a national chain, which I won't name, and it ended up going under.'