Awards and Client Referrals Page #1

Updated 7 / 22 / 2010

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

I've had lots of Clients at the end of a gutter job comment how their new gutters turned out even better than they had imagined.  And how I've had less warranty calls over the last decade than I have fingers on one hand, but how do I share this with potential clients? Aside from the client referrals I get of course.  Many 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. 

I was a BBB members back in early 1997, and were invited  to attended their Second Annual Business Integrity Awards Banquet for the year 1996 (at $150 a plate).  I made a few connections there, but more importantly I came up with the idea from that awards ceremony of inserting a postcard (shown below) in each presentation folder I give prospective clients at the time we are there to draw up a bid for gutter replacement.  These postcards are stamped and pre-addressed to the BBB in Downtown Portland Oregon (they have since moved to Lake Oswego).  We figured this might inspire my Clients to forward their thought about my work on to the BBB, and DMR Gutters 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

We had no idea what the results would be, since at the time of the bid I did not mentioned the postcard in their folder. I did not even remind our happy clients to fill out their card and send it in, but many had over the next year and I was nominated for this award.  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 this awards process.  I was 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 year: 1997. It seems that I passed their inspection, since my business under the previous name of Dramatic Mobile Reproductions 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).

Yes, I know that was a lousy name. I had come up with a business name back in 1985 to represent my Exwife's and my initials: David & Merryll Rich, so I've been stuck with it ever since. (LOL) I later changed it to Dynamic Metal Rendering in 2000, but now I do most of my work through my DBA of Copper By Design.

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 I had implemented was also good for our sales, since they know how serious I am about honesty and quality.  If during a job I felt things were not going well with a client, all I had to do is remember I cannot afford one negative comment. Then suddenly everything seems to go smoothly.  It is not the client that needed to adjust, it is my involvement with that client. 

That is how good business is done, at least when a business truly cares about their reputation.  Instead, many businesses who 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.

During that next year I devorced Merryll and 5 months later met Tia. We continued to keep up with this postcard program in our initial contact presentation folder when doing our bids for gutter work.  DMR Gutters was fortunate enough to be asked to write our essay and demonstrate our ethical responsibility to a panel of Judges yet again (a representative from Neil Kelly being one of those Judges) at the Downtown BBB office here in Portland Oregon.

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

There were only three categories this year for just 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. I suppose they feel it is not nearly as difficult to maintain high standards since I have no employees to deal with, so I did not warrant the winning ticket.

Not to toot my 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 I do not feel too bad that I did not score the bigger trophy.

Being chosen as a finalist two years in a row is a trophy all of it's own, since I believe I 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 I had from the beginning.

We have continued with this postcard program for several years afterwards, but finally realized the BBB will never consider DMR for this award again, since I was awarded this same honor 2 years in a row for the year 1997 and 1998. Politics, or just their way of spreading the awards around. Who knows? I also understand their Logic to give these awards to larger companies who have the advertising dollars to brag up this sort of BBB program, and there for boosting their membership, increasing their revenue.

This sort of postcard program is not something that most companies would 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 on 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 sent in later on.