According to Wikipedia, an award is;

“Something given to a person, a group of people – like a sports team – or an organisation in recognition of their excellence in a certain field”

The Oxford Dictionary has the definition as;

“A prize or other mark of recognition given in honour of an achievement”

Whilst Collins gives the description of;

“A prize or certificate that a person is given for doing something well”

 

OK, the list could go on and on and make for a very tedious blog indeed.  The point we’re trying to make is that words such as recognition, excellence, honour and achievement are prominent in the definition and the over-riding understanding is that receipt of an award comes from doing something better than others.

Now, let’s put ourselves into the position of a business, or indeed a consumer, who wishes to purchase a product or enlist the services of a professional.  The first step is to find out exactly which companies produce or provide the desired item or service but from that point where does the decision process go?  Brand loyalties aside (and the huge Marketing budgets which are normally associated with achieving such a following) our best guess is that there is then a need to somehow compare the providers.  Do we trust the claims on the websites (probably written by the Marketing department) to be the best, the least expensive, the most popular, the most effective… or do we try instead to find an independent review?

We have all become quite accustomed to using customer reviews when it comes to places to visit, accommodation, restaurants etc. but when it comes to choosing a business this isn’t always an option.  Testimonials are, of course, a valuable guide but even these can sometimes fall short if they do not accurately reflect our specific circumstances or situation.

What does ‘Award Winning’ tell us?  Well, it at least tells us that the company in question has been deemed, independently, better than the others in its category.  We say ‘at least’ because in fact it suggests so much more.  If the award won (or even just nearly won) is one which is recognised within the relevant industry, then we also know that it was judged professionally and thoroughly by those who know the subject well.  If it was a more general award – for example relating to innovation, environmental credentials, social responsibility or similar – then we can instantly see that the company in question takes their wider responsibilities seriously too, and that’s generally a very good thing in terms of trust and transparency.

At The Awards People we’d also argue that the mere action of entering any kind of award indicates that an organisation is willing to open itself up to scrutiny and, therefore, genuinely believes that they have something at least a little bit special going on.  Whilst there isn’t always a financial cost associated with award entry, there are of course costs to the business in terms of time and resources when completing an application and no-one would enter into such a commitment without believing that they stood a chance of being successful.

For us there are few other indicators quite so trustworthy than knowing that a company willingly asked to be audited and benchmarked against its competitors. Now, if that scrutiny resulted in the business being applauded for what the judges’ saw, we ask is there any better independent verification of quality?  We certainly can’t think of anything quite so reassuring.