Welcome to the Australian Achiever Customer Service Awards
2008 - our eleventh year
An Australian Achiever Award is the indisputable way of proving your genuine care for your customers.
Hundreds of good businesses enter this Award year after year, building their reputation for consistent good service and adding visible substance to goodwill.
If you want to showcase your business's great customer service skills OR if you are a person looking for those you can trust will treat you with friendly courtesy and respect, these Awards will help you.
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The Australian Achiever Awards are for businesses that practice sound customer service skills.
Businesses that are genuine about good customer service are always the best to deal with. The result is fresh business growth through customer loyalty, endorsement and referral.
These Awards highlight that distinctive edge. They recognise and reward customer satisfaction levels of 80%+, giving those businesses which achieve this level, an advantage over competitors and their customers a credible and powerful reason to do business with them.
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Upcoming Categories
Beauty Services - closing 8 August
Animal & Pet - closing 22 August
Hairdressing Services - closing 5 September
Relocation, Removals & Storage - Closing 12 September
Heating & Cooling - Closing 25 September
Finance & Insurance - Closing 3 October
Travel, Tourism & Accommodation - Closing 10 October
Have a look at our ‘Gallery of Best Businesses”.
Here you will find the businesses who enter over and over again – some for eleven years in a row since the inception of the Australian Achiever Awards. They recognise the value of this Award to their image and credentials. It gives them a powerful marketing tool. It gives them an annual picture of where they stand with their customers. Many use it as a KPI (Key Performance Indicator). It gives them proof of service consistency. These are businesses who genuinely care for their customers.
Customer Referral - The proven way to grow your business if your customers recommend you to their family, friends and colleagues, an Australian Achiever Award makes the most of these happy customer endorsements
"This picture paints a thousand words for each of our Achievers"
We give you a way to evaluate your service levels and stand out from the competition
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Australian Achiever Award recognition gives you a competitive advantage. It helps your business growth through:
- an extremely cost-effective marketing tool which highlights your difference over competition.
- a highly credible customer referral tool.
- a morale boost to your staff.
- acting as your own customer research survey ; a resource to help you measure, review and act on your service levels.
- the opportunity to promote and publicly demonstrate consistently high service levels over a period of years.
Overview
We run these awards for a separate business category every week for every State and Territory in Australia
Our measurement is based solely on customer service issues.
We award a Highly Recommended status to all businesses that achieve an 80% plus score. The business receives a benchmark feedback score on their separate results in regard to Timeliness, Attitude, Client Needs, Communication, Value, Care, Overall Perception, Strengths/Weaknesses and Referral.
A primary benefit for these businesses is the promotional opportunity the award provides. A huge number of our achievers have experienced good growth from prominently displaying their Australian Achiever logo.
The Awards are open to any business in Australia - Metro & Regional. Any business can enter at any time. Results are given within 3 weeks.
Entry costs $270.00 first time. - reduced to $225.00 (Conditional) for re-entry the following year/s.
Normally we telephone interview 3-4 customers and one trade supplier (as an 'internal customer'). Sometimes a business may request us to talk to more (up to 10 customers at no additional cost), but usually this is not necessary. Our history of interviewing different customers each year for the businesses who have entered every year over the last eleven years, shows significant consistency of results.
We provide a customer service benchmark for very little effort on your part.
Looking for a great restaurant near you in Sydney or Melbourne?
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We have 104 Melbourne restaurants and 52 Sydney restaurants listed on this website.
These are all restaurants that have proved they treat customers with superb service.
When you are next looking for a great restaurant near you, check out our Business Directory and search under the Restaurant category for your State.
This Award will reward your great service.
Many businesses benefit from entering every year for feedback on their service levels and to secure consistent endorsement for their dependability.
A large number of businesses have made this an integral part of their annual business plan.
It is an independent customer appraisal across seven customer service criteria to use as a measurement for fine-tuning service levels.
Achievers with over 80% customer satisfaction levels are recognised with an Australian Achiever Award. This allows every achieving business to benefit equally from the massive promotion that surrounds the Australian Achiever Award symbol.
The logo is being used by thousands of quality businesses, building their credibility through cumulative awareness of excellence in customer service .
They all have the free opportunity to promote their great service using the Australian Achiever logo on any business related item. You will find many businesses use this to promote their distinct difference in the Yellow Pages and on websites, advertising, doorways, vehicles, business cards, quote forms, etc.
We provide a tastefully designed Certificate to prove your achievement
And a stylish trophy to the Winner (Highest score achieved)
of each category that meets a quota of 3+
All Achievers receive a Media Release to publicise their win to customers, local newspapers, industry magazines and all other influential contacts.
Kerry Henderson - HVC Movement Engineers, NSW says... Brilliant marketing tool. Having achieved Highly Recommended status and having access to the gold sticker has been the deciding factor for two major contracts Wow. Highly Recommended 2001, 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005, 2006, 2007 Winner 2008
Combo IT receives a letter from the Australian Achiever Awards
Wow! The Team at Combo IT recently succeeded in two magnificent days of becoming Microsoft Gold Certified Partners and receiving first place in the Australian Achiever Award. Read Combo's, David Markus', account of his remarkable 48 hours.
" The Wednesday and Thursday that launched the beginning of the rest of my life!
At Combo IT we were working towards being Microsoft Gold Certified Partners. This was a process that took us three years. We had to have our technicians qualify on the specific Microsoft technologies we work with by sitting some tough exams, we had to apply our training on customer sites and use those sites as reference sites to gain Microsoft Competencies. The final step to achieve Gold was to pass some survey requirements, customer satisfaction feedback which Microsoft undertook. For that we submitted forty customer names and contact details, Microsoft estimate that 30% of those people would respond. We had a response rate of 87.5% and the score that we got from the thirty five people that responded was a 189 out of a possible 200! That gave us 25 points more than we needed so we did not just dribble across the line, we stormed across it. The passing level in partner achievement points is 120. We leapt to 145 in one step.
We got Gold Certified on 26 July!
On 27 July we received a letter from the Australian Achiever Awards which we have now entered for three years in a row. The letter said Congratulations! Following Judging of…. and to our delight discovered that we had won our division with a score of 98.27% for customer satisfaction. We are also pleased to share the names of a few of the customers that were reviewed to get this score, Guides Victoria, Society of Hospital Pharmacists Australia, Aboriginal Housing Board of Victoria, LifeGuard Financial Services.
We are now riding a fabulous wave of confidence and expanding our operation. We are already attracting a higher profile of staff and customers, and seeing the reflection on the faces of people we are telling our company story to. Now when we talk to people about great customer service... they just get it, and that really makes a difference to everything we are doing.
As the Director of Combo IT I originally entered the Australian Achiever Awards thinking it was a great way to improve a small business. We are now 11 people and expanding to 15 by the end of the year. The customers we are impressing with this award are large professional organisations. I have been overwhelmed by the response we get from customers and prospects when we mention the award."
David Markus
Director
Why we are different from other Awards
The Awards are conducted individually for a different category of business services and supplies every week - 52 different descriptions of business types. (If your business doesn't fit into one of these categories, you are able to enter the overall Australian Services & Supplies section.)
Entry is very simple. It will take you only a few minutes of your time.
The Awards provide an equal opportunity for all businesses, regardless of size. It focuses on service standards, rated by your own customers/clients in a strictly confidential process.
These are: Overall Perception
Timeliness
Communication
Understanding of customer needs
Friendliness, Politeness
Care and Attention
Presentation / Cleanliness
Value
Strengths
Areas needing improvement / suggestions for expansion
Referral
Ethics
Our method of phoning your customers and asking them to rate your business across these customer service standards maintains arms length objectivity.
This is the only quantifiable system of measuring customer service levels in small to medium sized businesses.
Our questionnaire normally takes only two minutes to complete and therefore does not encroach on your customers' valuable time too much.
Over 4500 individual small to medium size businesses have entered this Award over the last ten years with a great many entering every year or every second year because of the ongoing benefits it provides.
Here are some of the ways we are different:
We are independent of any affiliation with Business Associations or any other Corporate body. This Award is not restricted to a single industry and, as a result, imparts a far greater cumulative awareness and 'branding' effect.
We have -
No team of judges who can bring subjectivety to the results
No written submission that takes undue pressure on your time
No mystery shopper catching you unaware
No voting system open to manipulation
No obligatory Awards Dinner enticing extra money. Our Celebration Dinner is not mandatory
We are a low cost, arms length, customer friendly organisation
THIS AWARD IS SELF-FUNDING - AN ADMINISTRATION FEE OF $270 IS REQUIRED FOR ENTRY
Take a step towards showcasing your customer service
Customer referral is one of the most important issues you should address. Are you a small or medium size business that gives great service and wants to capatalise on your customer focus? By entering these Awards and achieving an 80+% result, you will make the most of a unique marketing opportunity.
Businesses that are passionate about doing the best for their customers are now able to showcase this commitment and gain the extra benefit it presents.
