I recently got an email saying I won an award from the Quality Business Awards. My firth thought was “who are these guys” and “is this legit?”
I was excited and confused all in the same breath. I have a blog and like to do some research here and there because I am always looking for new content so I decided to dig a little deeper.
Not a Voting Contest
Their website clearly states that this is not a voting popularity contest. When we think “awards” we naturally think that there is a nomination process and then a voting popularity contest where the person that gets the most votes is declared the winner. With the Quality Business Awards they have a form where anyone can nominate any business for the upcoming nomination year. This is for free.
The only time they charge money is if you’re nominating for the current year that has already passed. EG you want to argue that you should have been the winner, not some other business. Makes sense I guess because it stops people wasting their time.
Algorithm to Determine Winner
Once they have enough nominations for a category. EG the “best dentist in Toronto” they claim to have an algorithm to determine who the winner is. My guess is that it automatically checks customer sentiment, reviews, ratings, website etc. After the algorithm/bot/whatever you want to call it spits out a winner, they manually check to make sure it all makes sense. EG they don’t want the robot to make a silly mistake and make a car yard win best dentist. They claim that only if the winner gets a score over 95% will the declare it a winner. This checks out because there are a lot of missing categories. EG for some locations no winner was declared.
I am not against this method in determining a winner. I find that a lot of awards that just rely on businesses begging their friends and family to cast as many votes as they can to be a bit fraudulent. I also think that it can be gamed. If you’re truly determining who is the best, that doesn’t mean who could beg the most people to vote for them in a popularity contest.
Certificates Badges, Plaques and Trophies
Once a winner has been determined. The company owner will get an email informing them that they have won for their category and location. I have noticed that they update their website around April each year.
Being listed on the website is free. You have the rights to use your link and their logo for marketing material. I like this because the other awards make you have to pay money to use the rights. Quality Business Awards is very giving in that respect. I asked if I have permission to use their logo on my site and they said yes. They even declare this on their website which means you don’t even have to ask for permission.
However, if you want a certificate, badge, plaque, or trophy you will have to pay. Originally I thought that I should get all this for free because I won for my category and why should I have to pay? I reached out and asked why I don’t get this for free and they said it’s because they don’t have any sponsorships. If you look around the site there is no affiliation with a bank or major corporation. if you look at the awards, they don’t put a d TD, or CIBC logo or anything on the award. I guess that makes sense. I had a look at a few other award sites and they seem to have the same policy so it’s not uncommon.
It’s also worth noting that there is no award ceremony with the Quality Business Awards. I think those are silly anyway because you have to pay thousands to attend those if you want to receive a trophy. At least with these guys you can pay it and it gets shipped to you without all the speeches, cocktails, and showing up in person. Who has time for that?
Also worth noting that they give you a high resolution version of their logo which you can use for free and add to your marketing which is really cool.
Summary
I like these awards much more than threebestrated and Canadian Business Excellence Awards for the following reasons.
- Free nominations. Other award companies like Canadian Business Excellence Awards costs $295 to apply!
- Quick and easy nomination process. Takes 20 seconds for a customer to apply to be nominated. No double verification, and no phone calls needed. Online and easy which makes the nomination process simple.
- Free use of intellectual property. You don’t have to ask permission to use their logo and link for marketing. You can use their logo which they give for free in high resolution. Don’t have to ask permission for it as they mention it on their site in their terms of use. I have seen other award companies email website owners saying they can’t mention their award because they didn’t pay them money. Hats off to Quality Business Awards for being the good guys.
- Only downside is that you have to pay if you want a plaque, trophy etc because they don’t have sponsorship. At least you’re not getting a trophy or anything with a banks logo on it or “presented by BMO”. The award companies that do give free trophies to winners are also the same companies that charge hundreds just to apply to be nominated with no guarantee that you even win.
- Winners aren’t declared by a voting popularity contest. I like this because winners are chosen based on their track record. EG Google, Facebook reviews etc. You also have to have scored over 95% which makes this award very hard to get. I like that they declare 1 winner for each category. Not 3,4,5 winners or “gold, silver, bronze” etc.
Hope my review helped. Congratulations if you won a Quality Business Award.
