Introduction
ChrisToday we’re going to take a look at how your company can win a Buyer’s Choice Award. What are the Buyer’s Choice Awards? They are awards given to companies by ConsumerAffairs based on consumer reviews. Winning companies consistently excel at one aspect of their business relative to their peers. The aspects depend on the category. Think everything from customer service to claims handling. But before you earn an award, you need to qualify. And to understand how to qualify, you need to talk to this person:
DaynaHi. I’m Dayna, and my editorial team is behind the Buyer’s Choice Awards at ConsumerAffairs.
ChrisWell then you’re the person to ask. How do I get my company to win one?
DaynaEvery brand in a participating category has the chance to win a BCA if they do two things. Get enough of their verified customers to leave reviews about an aspect of their business, like customer service, price, or what have you, depending on the category. And, number two, those reviews carry a positive sentiment about the aspect. And again, aspects are parts of the business relevant to a consumer, like price. The Buyer’s Choice Awards identify the companies and brands buyers would choose to do business with.
ChrisI see what you did there. And that’s all it takes to win?
DaynaNope, that’s just eligibility. Winning is a separate question. We’ll get there. So to summarize: there’s no application, no nomination, and no committee. Every brand is measured the same way once they get enough reviews about a certain aspect of their business.
ChrisAwesome, so here’s the plan. First, Dayna will walk through what the awards actually measure, because you can’t hit a target you can’t see. Then we’ll go through the two eligibility requirements. Third, we’ll look at how the ranking works once you’re eligible, and what separates a Winner from a Finalist. And finally, the questions we hear most from brands. Think of it less like a popularity contest and more like a report card, one subject at a time. And I’m Chris with Aspect by ConsumerAffairs. We help brands automate review collection, improve AI visibility, and increase trust with buyers. So now, let’s get into it.
Chapter 1: What’s being measured
ChrisBefore we get to eligibility, I want to understand what’s actually being graded. Let’s use extended auto warranties as the example category today.
DaynaSure. The algorithm behind Buyer’s Choice Awards runs on review “aspects.” An aspect is the part of a review where a customer talks about one specific business-related topic. In extended auto warranties, there are four award categories, and each one is a business aspect: coverage, customer service, price, and claims handling. One review can be about more than one aspect at a time. Someone might write a review about how “the claims process was easy but the price went up in year two.” That review counts toward the claims handling award and the price award. A brand could win awards for both.
ChrisGot it, so it’s not one review, one vote. A single review can count for you in one award and against you in another.
DaynaExactly. Then, for each aspect a customer mentions, we grade what they said into one of three levels of sentiment or feeling: Happy, Satisfied, or Upset. We combine the sentiment with the star rating the customer gave. A positive comment about customer service inside a one-star review doesn’t count as “Happy.”
ChrisSo I’m guessing that you want as many reviews as you can get with “Happy” aspects?
DaynaAlmost. To win a Buyer’s Choice Award, you need to maximize the percentage of satisfied customers and minimize the percentage of Upset customers. Take all the reviews you get on an aspect, say coverage in auto warranties. You want a high percentage of those reviews being “satisfied.”
ChrisSo you’re measuring how consistently a company meets or exceeds a customer’s expectations.
DaynaRight. And the ratio of Happy to Satisfied only comes into play as a tiebreaker. If two brands have the same satisfaction rate, the one with the higher Happy percentage wins.
ChrisAnd which reviews go into this?
DaynaReviews from the twelve months ending in the month the award is given. So if the award is given in April, like it was this year, the reviews posted from the previous April through March count towards it.
ChrisSo a great review from three years ago doesn’t help you here? And neither does a great review on another site like Google Maps or BBB?
DaynaCorrect on both. Every year starts from zero, and only verified ConsumerAffairs reviews count.
ChrisI think I’m getting it. You want a lot of reviews from real customers around award aspects, those things that make a business stand out in the industry. And you want your customers walking away happy or satisfied. Now that I think I have that set, let’s talk about how your company becomes eligible.
Chapter 2: Earn reviews
DaynaThe first requirement for a Buyer’s Choice Award is volume. You need a sufficient number of reviews in the last year that mention an award aspect like customer service. If you get a lot of reviews, but none of them talk about customer service specifically, then you won’t be eligible.
ChrisJust by way of example, if an auto warranty brand has 500 reviews in the last year but none mention claims handling, then it isn’t eligible for the claims handling award?
DaynaCorrect. Not enough people have said anything about claims handling in that case for us to judge the brand fairly.
ChrisThat feels like the place where a lot of brands get frustrated. They think they have plenty of reviews with a good star rating, but they don’t win an award.
DaynaIn cases like that, it should be relatively easy for a brand to become eligible for an award next go-around. They would just need to start asking customers for reviews at the right moment in their journey. If you want the claims handling award, ask customers for a review after they go through a claims process. If you want the best value award, ask customers who are just about to renew what they think about price. They’re going to mention the award aspect because they’re actively going through it.
ChrisAh, I get it. That’s better than asking everyone right after they sign up. They haven’t had the full experience with the company.
DaynaThat’s the right way to think about it. A customer who signed up yesterday can tell you about the sales process, but they can’t possibly tell you about a claim because they haven’t made one yet. Or a review that just says “great company, five stars” doesn’t mention any aspect. That doesn’t count toward any award. So ask customers who actually have a story to tell about an award aspect, and ask them right after it happens.
Chapter 3: Be better than average
ChrisOK, now I want to talk about the scoring criteria. Say I’ve got enough reviews about claims processing. Now how do I earn a Buyer’s Choice Award?
DaynaYour satisfaction rate on that aspect, in your case claims processing, has to be at or above the average satisfaction rate for the whole category, which includes the companies that didn’t hit the minimum review threshold. So the bar is set by every brand in the category. If your customers complain about claims processing more often than the category as a whole, you’re out of the claims processing award no matter how many reviews you have.
ChrisBut like you said earlier, I could be eligible for customer service and not eligible for claims processing if I do well in that one aspect.
DaynaHappens all the time. Eligibility is per aspect. A brand can be in the running for two awards, but out of the running on the other two.
ChrisAnd how can I tell if I’m making my customers too upset?
DaynaGo read your reviews and find the ones that mention that aspect. Here’s what I would do: go to your profile, sort by lowest star rating, and read the bottom twenty. There’s almost always a problem that keeps coming up across all those reviews. Fix that problem.
ChrisNot a general “improve customer experience” initiative.
DaynaNo. The award is one aspect at a time, so the fix should be too. If your price complaints are all about the year-two increase, that’s the problem you should be trying to solve. And then just go for volume: ask every customer for a review. If you ask everyone, you’ll get stories from across every aspect of your business.
ChrisNow we’re cooking. The keys to ranking well are addressing problems and going for volume. So now that we’ve gone over getting reviews and solving customer complaints, let’s go into some more actionable tactics.
Chapter 4: Ranking well
ChrisOK, let’s say after not winning a BCA this year, my auto warranty company put a lot of effort into improving our claims processing. We got enough reviews on that aspect and they were overwhelmingly positive. I’m assuming at this point you line up the eligible brands by satisfaction rate and the highest three win?
DaynaThat’s how it worked through 2025. For 2026, we added one adjustment for review volume.
DaynaSay one brand has 50 reviews about customer service and a 2% upset rate. That’s 1 upset customer out of 50. Another brand has 5,000 reviews and a 3% upset rate. That’s 4,850 happy or satisfied customers against only 150 upset customers. Under the old rules, the 50-review brand wins. But if you were shopping, which brand would you trust more?
ChrisThe one with 5,000 reviews.
DaynaMost people would too. So now we take each satisfaction rate and add a small credit for review volume. The more reviews you have, the bigger the credit. But the credit grows slowly, and ten times the reviews doesn’t get you ten times the credit. It just gets you a little more. But the beauty of Buyer’s Choice Awards is that we have multiple winners, so in that example you gave, most likely both brands would win. The three highest adjusted scores on each aspect are the Winners. The next four are Finalists. Meaning there’s at most seven potential brands that earn an award for any one aspect.
ChrisSo seven potential badges per aspect. Three winners, four finalists. Pretty straightforward, but we do get a lot of specific questions, so maybe you can help me work through those. Because if I’m a brand that wants to win an award next year, I’ll take any insight I can get.
Frequently asked questions
ChrisOK, these are some frequently asked questions I’ve collected from talking to account managers around ConsumerAffairs. Let me ask you the most common. A brand says they had 500 reviews but were not eligible for any award. Why is that?
DaynaAlmost always one of two things. Either the brand didn’t collect enough reviews mentioning an award aspect, or their upset rate on the aspect was above the category average. Total review count doesn’t matter until the brand clears the aspect-specific threshold and satisfaction rate hurdles.
ChrisNext question comes up a lot. A brand says they have a higher star rating than a brand that won. How did they beat us?
DaynaA brand’s overall star rating doesn’t factor into the award. Only the star rating for a specific review about a specific award aspect factors in. For example, a brand can have a great overall rating, but still have a lot of customers complaining about price. They aren’t going to win a value award.
ChrisRelated, another company recently pointed out they have way more reviews than a brand that won. Why didn’t the volume credit help?
DaynaThe volume credit is small on purpose. It helps when you’re close to the same satisfaction rate. It won’t make up for a big gap between you and a competitor.
ChrisLast question. A brand says, “We were a Finalist last year and this year we didn’t win anything. What happened?”
DaynaTwo possibilities. Either your satisfaction rate on that aspect went down, or other brands started to beat you, even if you stayed flat. Every year is a fresh twelve-month period, and as we said earlier, badges are capped at seven per aspect, so a brand that was fifth last year could be eighth this year without technically doing anything worse. Other companies just got better.
ChrisAwesome, thanks so much for going over everything with me, Dayna.
DaynaNo problem, Chris. That’s the Buyer’s Choice Awards in a nutshell. We want to recognize the brands customers would recommend to a friend. Because at ConsumerAffairs, we exist to help you when you need it most by matching you to brands you can trust.
