Rules for Agents (2014 competition)
Conditions of Entry
- ENTRY is open to all estate & letting agents in the British Isles.
- Agency firms who wish to enter must have been trading on or before 31st January 2013.
Conditions for Voting
- All sellers, buyers who have completed on a sale during 2013 or landlords who have appointed the agent (during or previous to 2013) are eligible to complete the questionnaire.
- Members of staff AND ex staff of an agency may not complete questionnaires as sellers, buyers or landlords of their own agency or another branch of that agency.
- New members of staff (who have accepted a position at the agency but not yet started) who are a client of the agency may NOT complete a questionnaire.
- Immediate relatives of agency staff (spouse, partner, parents or children) are not allowed to complete the questionnaire of behalf of the agency that the relative works for.
Conditions for Completing Questionnaires
- Questionnaires must be completed and received by 12 noon on 31st January 2014.
- Sellers and buyers may complete a questionnaire for each property sold or bought (completed) during 2013. This rule also applies to new property developers.
- Landlords may only complete one questionnaire regardless of the number of properties managed or let by the agent.
- Questionnaire are CONFIDENTIAL and therefore must be completed by the client NOT by the agent on their behalf.
- Clients must not be influenced by the agent while completing their questionnaire.
- Telephone completions are NOT permitted.
- Postal votes must be sent directly to us by clients.
- Paper questionnaires completed by clients at agents offices and then sent by the agent will not be counted.
- Agents must notify us of any questionnaires completed by clients online in agent offices.
- Questionnaires completed (online or paper) without valid contact details may be deleted.
Additional Rules
- Agents may offer their own incentive to clients to complete the questionnaires. HOWEVER the incentive cannot be related to the score to be given by the client. If we are informed by clients that an agent is offering an incentive for ‘excellent’ ratings that agent could be disqualified.
Scoring
- Agents taking part in the SALES category must have a minimum of 10 questionnaires completed to be eligible for the short listed stage of the competition.
- Agents taking part in the LETTINGS category must have a minimum of 20 questionnaires completed to be eligible for the short listed stage of the competition.
- Scores for each office are based on an average score basis. Final scores are weighted according to the number of questionnaires submitted (see bonus table below).
- Scoring for Best Small Chain (2-5 offices) is based on the best final scores from the top 2 offices entered.
- Scoring for Best Medium Chain (6-20 offices) is based on the best final score from the top 6 offices entered.
- Scoring for Best Large Chain (21+ offices) is based on the best final score from the top 21 offices entered.
Awards for Business, owners of the ESTAS, reserve the right to disqualify any agent who does not abide by the above rules
Rules for Suppliers (2014 competition)
- Only suppliers who’s core business is working for the residential property industry may enter the competition.
- Suppliers must have been trading on or before 1st January 2013
- Clients must have worked with the supplier for a minimum of 3 months in 2013 to vote.
- Questionnaires must be completed and received by 12 noon on 31st January 2014.
- All clients within a company who work directly with a supplier firm may vote (ONE VOTE PER BRANCH IS ALLOWED).
- Telephone votes are not permitted.
- Clients may only complete the questionnaire once for each supplier.
- Members of staff from a supplier firm taking part in the competition, who use the same supplier services, cannot vote.
- A vote audit will take place after voting has closed.
- During the vote audit spot checks on voters will be made. If contact details are not valid a firm may be disqualified.
- Awards for Business reserve the right to disqualify any supplier who does not abide by the above rules.
The vote audit process will apply to agents and suppliers as follows;
- Agents/supplier taking part must inform us of any duplicate votes or rogue votes (names that are not recognisable as one of your clients).
- A phone audit will take place. Any votes without a valid phone number may deleted.
- If phone numbers are unobtainable or not related to the voter the agent or supplier in question may be disqualified.
The score formula for agents/suppliers will be as follows;
The FINAL SCORE for each agent/supplier will be calculated by taking the Average % Score and weighting this by the % Bonus achieved – determined by the total votes received (see bonus bands below).
The Average % Score is the score which can be viewed by each agent/supplier on their secure login area via our website. This score is calculated from the ratings each client gives when completing the questionnaire. The % Bonus is added after the vote audit period and this will determine the FINAL SCORE for each agent/supplier.
The bonus bands are as follows;
| Votes | Bonus |
| 30-40 | 0.25% |
| 41-50 | 0.5% |
| 51-60 | 0.75% |
| 61-70 | 1% |
| 71-80 | 1.25% |
| 81-90 | 1.5% |
| 91-100 | 1.75% |
| 101-110 | 2% |
| 111-120 | 2.25% |
| 121-130 | 2.5% |
| 131-140 | 2.75% |
| 141-150 | 3% |
| 151-160 | 3.25% |
| 161-170 | 3.5% |
| 171-180 | 3.75% |
| 181-190 | 4% |
| 191-200 | 4.25% |
| 201-210 | 4.5% |
| 211-220 | 4.75% |
| 220+ | 5% |
