David Hood, president of geoLOGIC systems, had a gut feeling for a long time that customers were extremely pleased with geoSCOUT™, his company’s unmatched exploration information system.

Actually, it was more than a feeling. Continuously rising sales of the Windows-based software package, which guides big and small companies in their searches for oil and gas, pointed to the same conclusion.

But as a professional whose working life is steeped in hard data and methodically verified information, Hood wanted more.

So he hired an independent market research firm to see if his company was meeting virtually all the clients’ needs, or whether there were some flops he should know about.

geoLOGIC’s geoSCOUT software is ‘a truly powerful tool,’ according to one client at Burlingtin Resources Canada.

The grin on his face as he tells the story kind of wrecks the punchline.

He plows ahead with the buildup anyway.

“We got a ton of numbers back,” Hood says of the survey by Environics West.

“We asked our customers: ‘Are you happy? Are you happier? Or are you less happy?’

“And only six per cent came back and said they were ‘less happy.’ ”

But even with that unarguably good news, he wasn’t prepared to rest on his laurels. He sent his customers a note saying: “To the six per cent of you that were disappointed, we’d like to apologize and promise to try harder next year.”

That anecdote is emblematic of geoLOGIC’s commitment to customer service, a commitment that yields a steady flow of praise from clients who buy the geoSCOUT system.

It’s “a truly powerful tool,” says Richard Burrage, geoscience applications adviser at Burlington Resources Canada Ltd. “It’s extremely powerful in its ability to graphically describe ideas.”

Over at EnCana Corporation, systems analyst James Perry says, “geoSCOUT is a powerful, easy- to-use application backed by a superior support and sales team.”

He adds, “geoLOGIC consistently displays a sincere desire to have their customers steer the development of geoSCOUT. They listen and treat our relationship more like a partnership than merely that of a service provider.”

Perry highlights one of geoLOGIC’s basic policies, that of the customer being unofficially on the research-and-development team.

“On average, we are implementing 70 per cent of customer requests within a year of receiving them,” Hood says.

“We’re spending about $1 million on R & D a year. We’re trying to work for the customers to save them money. So,” he advises customers, “if you tell us ahead of time there are things you’d like to see over the horizon, we’ll start building them now.”

Some 1,000 new clients went for geoSCOUT last year and this year’s pace is up substantially, in part because of the product’s user- friendly design.

“Whether you’re an engineer, a geologist or a landman, it can be used by anyone,” says Sarah Venance, geoLOGIC’s marketing and advertising co-ordinator.

Clients’ comments have eased the software ever farther along that path.

“They drive the improvements,” Venance says of the customers. geoLOGIC executives and employees are proud of geoSCOUT, their chief product. It has been constantly improved since its introduction in 1983 by company founder Joe Harris, a geologist who saw a huge gap in the market because of his knowledge of what the client really needed in a practical way.

Fundamentally, geoSCOUT is a decision-support tool for oil and gas professionals as they search for their target resource. The software assembles and presents the data they need to analyse critical information and complex factors, then to come to the right decisions.

Let’s say you’re looking at putting together a play. geoSCOUT helps you find out which land to buy, whether it’s available and how much it will cost.

Are there pipelines nearby? Click the mouse. Here comes the answer.

What are the geological formations down there? It’s all there on the monitor screen.

“We take all the three-dimensional information and show it to the customer in a way that they can search the data and come to their decision,” Hood explains.

In the relentless drive to keep improving an already hot product and the renowned service behind it, Hood thinks like a consumer. Just like the rest of us, if he isn’t treated right – such as being forced to navigate one of those satanic voice-mail systems after calling a company for simple information – he feels frustrated and let down.

“You realize that, these days, you really have the ability to differentiate yourself as a company,” he says.“We’re building a business the old-fashioned way – one customer at a time. It’s critical for us that customers are happy.”