Your Customers Put You Here.
Here’s Your Path.
Businesses don’t find this award by shopping for it — they find it because their customers spoke up. If UBA has introduced itself to you, this page walks the whole journey honestly: the application, the shopping, the report, and both endings.
The Journey, Step by Step
The Introduction
We show you the actual nominations your customers wrote — their names, their words. No sales pitch survives contact with a customer saying, in writing, why you matter. You decide whether to go forward.
The Application
You apply to be shopped. An application fee applies — it covers the verification and shopping program. You’ll also donate gift cards, which fund the anonymous visits (and bring shoppers through your door spending like customers, because they are).
30 Days of Anonymous Shopping
UBA’s vetted secret shoppers visit across a full month. You won’t know who they are or when they came — that’s what makes the score mean something.
The Full Report
Every score, every category, delivered to you — the complete picture of what a stranger-customer actually experienced.
A Passing Score Earns the Award
Score at a passing level and The People’s Premier Choice Award is yours — presented by UBA, with your name set permanently into it.
Nobody Buys Step Five
There is no upgrade, no sponsorship tier, no “pay to skip.” Steps one through four are the only road. That’s precisely why the award sells your business for you once it’s on the wall.
The Scoring Rubric — Seven Things Your Customers Already Judge
Our shoppers score the five classic dimensions of service quality (the SERVQUAL framework used in service research worldwide), plus the two that decide whether a customer ever comes back.
Reliability
Do you do what you promised, when you promised it?
Responsiveness
How fast — and how willingly — do you help?
Assurance
Do customers trust you and feel confident in your hands?
Empathy
Does the customer feel known, heard, and cared for?
Tangibles
Do the place, the people, and the presentation match the promise?
Honesty in Pricing
Quotes honored, totals as expected. No surprises, no games.
Follow-Up
What happens after the sale — the call, the check-in, the “how did we do?”
Published to You
Every category score appears in your report. The passing line is a real line — your report shows exactly where you stand against it.
Falling Short Isn’t the End
Not every business passes the first time — the award would be worthless if every applicant did. Falling short does not get you a plaque anyway, and it does not get you a door slammed either.
The Consultation
You keep the full shopper report, and UBA walks it with you — what the shoppers found, category by category, and what to fix first. In the founder’s words from 2013: “We are not interested in pointing out faults, but in finding real solutions to pressing business matters where there is a possibility of growth.”
The Second Round
Fix what the report found, then run a second round of shopping. Lift the scores to a passing level and you earn the award exactly the way a first-round passer does — by deserving it when a stranger checks.
After You Win — Two Opt-Ins
🏆 The Announcement Ceremony
An honor your customers gave you deserves witnesses. Winners can opt into an award announcement ceremony with city officials and community leaders present — a real celebration, and a room full of people who now know your name. (Optional, offered to winners at an additional charge.)
📣 The Media Package
Winners can also take the media package: social media advertising and press coverage that turns the award into ongoing marketing. Powering that package is our media partner, OrchestraSI — the team that can rebuild your website and fully manage your public relations, so the story your customers started keeps working all year. (Optional, offered to winners at an additional charge.)