Judging

Businesses are judged via a 3 stage judging process. Throughout these stages, each business is ranked via a point allocation system.

Stage 1 - Votes

Businesses are voted for by their customers and Quest readers via voting coupons printed in each of the participating Quest titles or by lodging their votes online.   Get Voting Now

Businesses are allocated ranking points dependent on the number of votes received.

The six nominated businesses who receive the highest number of points in each category automatically become finalists and move on to stage two.

Please note that at no stage do the Business Achiever Awards publish a list of businesses for readers to vote for, this is to ensure that any business (that is eligible) can be voted for at any stage throughout the voting period.  All the voter has to do is enter the details of the business they wish to reward and the vote will be lodged on their behalf.

Please note: For the Business Achiever Awards 'nominating' and 'voting' are the same thing. By submitting a nomination for a business you are voting for that business. 1 Nomination = 1 Vote.

Stage 2 - Finalist Business Diagnostic Survey

Finalists are required to complete a Business Diagnostic Survey which is judged by our judging partner.

The points gained in this stage are added to those from stage one and the three businesses with the highest cumulative score then progress to stage three.

At the conclusion of the awards each business that completes the Business Diagnostic Survey will receive a benchmarking report, free of charge, courtesy of our judging partners.  This report is a useful tool for businesses to identify areas that may need further development.

Stage 3 - Mystery Shop

In this stage businesses are subject to a 'mystery shop'.  The results of the Mystery Shop are converted to points and added to those gained in stages one and two to determine the overall category winner.

The audit is secretly carried out by an external professional mystery shopping agency.

The purpose of this stage is to obtain a report on how the business interacts with customers on a personal level. Each mystery shopper is evaluating the business based on customer service and presentation only.

This final stage of assessment is carried out without the finalists' prior knowledge, and as such the businesses that progress to stage three of the judging process WILL NOT be advised of their status.  As you can understand a Mystery Shopper Audit needs to be a ‘mystery’ and by definition businesses that progress to this stage will not be notified of this.

At the conclusion of the awards each business that progressed to this final stage of judging will be offered the opportunity to purchase a comprehensive report generated from their Mystery Shop Audit.  This report is a perfect way for the business owner to see how they performed from a consumer’s perspective and pinpoint areas that may need development.