Awards and Client Referrals Page #1

Our Involvement in the Better Business Bureau's
Business Integrity Award Program

We've had lots of clients comment on how our work turned out even better than they had imagined it would.  Also, we have had very little warranty calls over the last decade, but how do we share this with potential clients, aside from the client referrals we will get?  Some consumers may take the time and effort to file a complaint with the BBB against a disreputable business, but hardly anyone takes the time to file a rave review. 

In March of 1997 we were invited as BBB members to attended the Better Business Bureau's Second Annual Business Integrity Awards Banquet for the year 1996.  I made a few connections there and came away from that awards ceremony with the idea of inserting postcards (shown below) in each presentation folder we give prospective clients at the time we are there to draw up a bid for their consideration.  These postcards are stamped and pre-addressed to the BBB in Downtown Portland Oregon.  We figured this might inspire them to forward their thought about my work on to the BBB, and we should be a shoe in for this award.

You can click on these images to get a better look,
or save off to your PC to print them out

At the time of the bid, we did not mentioned the postcard in their folder, and we did not remind our happy clients to fill out their card and send it in.  We had no idea what the results would be.  We were pleasantly surprised to get a letter from the local BBB with a questionnaire to fill out, asking us to list our ideas on our ethics in business and what we do to guarantee customer satisfaction for the awards process.  We were later called in to be subject to an interview at their Downtown BBB office as a potential finalist for their Business Integrity Award for that very next year: 1997.

It seems that we passed their inspection, since DMR was honored as one of the Semi-finalist at their next Awards Banquet in March of 1998, where we were presented with this certificate (shown below).

That year they had broken the awards up in general categories like: financial institutions, Service, Construction/Remodeling, and such. There was about half a dozen categories in all, and two Semi-finalists in each category.  A General Contractor by the name of Neil Kelly was the winner of the glass trophy in our category.  They also won a larger glass trophy as the winning business over-all the categories, to go onto the National BBB Business Integrity Award Competition.  So I guess we were up against some heavy competition that year.

The 1997 BBB Business Integrity Awards Banquet program

Cover page

Page 3

Here we are at the Banquet

Bill Rich (Father), John Rich (older Brother), Edna Rich (Grandmother), Hope Rich (2nd Daughter), Porsha Rich (1st Daughter), David Rich (Me), and Ceair Rich (3rd Daughter)

Page 1

Back page

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Here we are in front of our display we were invited to set up

David Rich (Me), Ceair Rich (3rd Daughter), and Edna Rich (Grandmother)

This postcard program we implemented was also good for our sales, since they now know how serious we are about honesty and quality.  If during a job we felt things were not going well with a client, all we have to do is remember we cannot afford one negative comment, and suddenly everything seems to go smoothly.  It is not the client that needs to adjust, it is our involvement. 

That is how good business is done, at least when a business truly cares about their reputation.  Instead, many businesses rely heavily on advertising, with the idea that 'There's a sucker born every day'. As well as the fact that people do not tend to network well.

We continued to keep up with this postcard program in our initial contact presentation folder when doing our bids for gutter work.  DMR was fortunate enough to be yet again asked to write our essay and demonstrate our ethical responsibility to a panel of Judges (a representative from Neil Kelly being one of those Judges) at the Downtown BBB office here in Portland Oregon.

Again we seemed to have passed the muster, and DMR was honored at their BBB Business Integrity Award Banquet in March of 1999, where we were presented as a Finalist with one of these nine glass trophies (shown here).

There were only three categories this year; large, medium, and small companies.  DMR was of coarse in the small business category, with two other small businesses.  I believe that Cleaner Image Maintenance was the business that took the larger trophy that time.

Not to toot our own horn, but if DMR was one of the nine Finalist, out of the 9,000 BBB members here in the NW who should be up for this award, I guess that makes us one in a thousand.  And since any business can be awarded this honor, even if they are not a BBB member, that makes the odds even greater, so we do not fee too bad that we did not score the bigger trophy, yet.

Being chosen as a finalist two years in a row is a trophy all of it's own, since I believe we still hold that title alone here in the NW.

The 1998 BBB Business Integrity Awards Banquet program

Cover page

Page 3

Page 1

Back page

Here we are at this Integrity Awards Banquet

Tia Rich (Wife), Damion Rich (younger Brother), Brady Rich (Damion's Son), Robin Rich (Damion's Wife), Trace White (Tia's Son), with Micaela White up front (Tia's Daughter)
(David was taking the picture)

This is the BBB's Awards Banquet sign on an easel with our company's name on it,
(second from the bottom).

Yes, they did misspelled Reproductions

We have since decided that: 'Dynamic Metal Rendering' fit with our specialty of working with sheet metal better than Dramatic Mobile Reproduction, while staying with the same logo and CCB #92250 we had from the beginning.

We have continued with this postcard program to this day, even though we do not imagine the BBB will ever consider DMR for this award again, since we were awarded this same honor 2 years in a row for the year 1997 and 1998.

They are sure to want to spread out these awards to other businesses, in order to inspire more membership in the BBB.  We also understand the wisdom to give these awards to companies who have the advertising dollars to brag up these sort of BBB programs, and there for boost their membership, increasing their revenue.

This sort of postcard program is not something that most companies could do.  You have to have a lot of quality control and high customer service standards to do something like this, or it would most surely back-fire on them.

The Comment Postcard sent to the BBB 1997 - 98

In mid 1999, we had gone to the Downtown Portland Oregon's Better Business Bureau's branch office requesting to see the postcards that were sent in, in order to review those comments for our quality control.  They happily gave us all of the cards they had in our file at their office.  And here they all are here for your review, uncensored.  There are 23 that had been sent in at that time.

We were pleasantly surprised to see that out of all these postcards, there did not seem to be one negative comment.  We have not bothered to check if there are more kept on file.