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The Awards
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OPEN DIVISION
Adobe Systems
Cisco Systems
Dell
IBM
Juniper Networks
McAfee
Mentor Graphics
Novell
SMALL COMPANY DIVISION
Articulate
Consona (M2M)
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ASPonline.com >
Web Support Awards FAQ
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FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS...
THE BIG PICTURE
How does the judging process work?
Each entry is reviewed by a panel of five independent judges,
using a scoring system that measures 25 different performance
criteria. The sites with the highest scores in their category
(Open Division, seven to eight awards; Small Company Division,
two to three awards)
become the "Year's Ten Best Web Support Sites."
How do you define the categories?
As its name implies, the Open Division is open to anyone who
wishes to enter. The Small Company Division is for companies whose
annual revenues are below $100 million.
We're a tiny division of a big company. What's our
category?
"Small" companies have to be independently owned. A division of a
big company must enter in the Open category. (How do we know if
your rich parent isn't slipping you a few extra bucks on the side?)
How many companies enter the competition?
We typically get 40-60 entries. That's not a huge number, but
putting together entry essays and other materials is a fairly
serious undertaking. So the competition tends to be pretty tough.
(We publish a list of participating companies and their support
URLs in each year's "Ten Best Sites" book, if you're interested in
scoping out the competition.)
ELIGIBILITY
Do we have to be ASP members to participate?
No.
What about overseas entries?
We've had winners from outside the U.S. in the past (well,
Canada and the U.K...), and we'd love to see more. Naturally, our judges may
have a hard time evaluating your site if the text is in an obscure
dialect of Klingon. But if even some of your site is in English,
we can probably give it a fair review.
We provide technology that clients embed in their sites.
Can we enter?
You may enter a client's site on their behalf, but please describe
the relationship clearly in the entry materials so our judges
understand what's happening. And if you focus just on the
technology you provide—such as a search engine or
knowledgebase—your overall score is likely to suffer.
ENTRY PROCESS
When is the deadline?
In 2008, the deadline will be Friday, March 7. We can also accept
late entries (with a late fee) during the following week. And, if
we still have judges available, we may be able to process entries
as much as two weeks after the deadline. But if you're going to be
that late, check with us first. (By the way—the deadline is based
on when WE receive the entry, not when you send it. The IRS says
you're okay if you just get a postmarked date on the envelope, but
they're a bunch of wimps compared to us.)
What's the purpose of the "Three Key Features" essay?
This essay helps the judges identify features or areas of the
site that they should examine most closely. It's a good idea to
use this essay to explain why these features are exceptional, and
perhaps to supply metrics and other background information for
context.
What's the purpose of the "Challenges" essay?
This essay helps the judges measure how well you used your
resources—people, money, technology—and your problem-solving
insights. Many companies lose points on this essay, incidentally,
by submitting public relations happy talk ("we strive to make our
customers even more delirious with joy"). If you overhauled the
site to fix lousy navigation and a defective search engine, say
so.
How long should our essays be?
The entry form says you shouldn't write more than 12 pages per
essay, but that's just a recommendation—we've never disqualified
anyone for adding a few extra pages. However, bear in mind that
long, boring documents are likely to be a turnoff for the judges.
May we embed the screen shots in the essays?
Yes. However, we recommend putting the screen shots in a separate
document to make sure that the images are readable. Sometimes
screen shots that are embedded in text are so small that it's
impossible for the judges to see important details.
Our site is password-protected. What do we do?
We'll ask you to provide a generic password that we can pass on
to the judges for the duration of the competition. (A generic
password is easiest for us to administer, because judges are
assigned randomly.) We also strongly encourage you to TEST the
password you submit with your entry—surprisingly often, we're
given passwords that don't work, and this makes our judges cranky.
Why do we have to submit six sets of essays and screen
shots?
We send each judge a separate set of materials to review. That's
why we don't accept electronic or faxed entries, by the way.
How do we pay the entry fee?
You can either enclose a check (company or personal) or credit
card information (card number, expiration, name of card holder)
on a separate piece of paper. Don't even think of asking us to
invoice your company.
JUDGING & SCORING
How do we find out about the scoring system?
Just download a copy of the Scoring Criteria
document we give all of our judges. Our scoring system is completely
open and transparent—you can see exactly what we look at and
how many possible points we assign. (To the best of our knowledge,
no other Web competition offers this much disclosure, by the
way.) Note that we have extensively revised and updated the scoring
system this year.
Some of the scoring criteria don't apply to our site. Will
we be at a disadvantage?
No. In fact, we've never seen a site that excelled in all 25 of our
performance metrics, or that even offered all of the features we
measure. Winning sites in the Open Division typically have scores
in the 85-95 point range, so it's possible to rank as a
high-performing site without implementing every possible feature.
Bear in mind also that our scoring system measures the quality
of feature implementation, not just the checklist presence of a
feature. A site that does an excellent job of implementing a shorter
list of features will generally out-perform a site that does a poor
job of implementing many features.
How can a small company with limited resources compete
against the big guys?
That's why we have a Small Company division. The entries in this
division compete only against each other. And to further
level the playing field, this year we're going to exclude each
small company's *five lowest-scoring criteria* in computing the
total score for that entry. Small companies will be measured
primarily on features they implement well, with no loss of points
for "missing" features.
Who are the judges?
We recruit our judges primarily from the membership of the
ASP—support managers, analysts, Web designers, consultants,
and other support professionals. We try to find a broad mix
of talents and expertise so that our evaluations will reflect
many points of view. The majority of our judges have already
helped with at least one previous "Best Sites" competition,
so they're pretty familiar with the scoring system and the
challenges of Web support delivery.
Can someone be a judge if their company also enters the
competition?
Yes. We don't give judges their own sites to evaluate, of
course. We also won't assign a judge to evaluate sites
developed by direct competitors, clients, or former
employers.
Will your judges sign non-disclosure agreements?
If that's a concern, let us know in advance and we'll select
judges for your entry who will agree to swallow a cyanide
capsule rather than disclose your secrets. (Please note that
the entry materials you provide should not include
confidential material, since we publish selections from the
winning submissions after the awards are presented.)
How long does the judging take?
If our judges all turn in their scores on time, we'll
announce the winners by April 22. The individual site
evaluations will take two or three weeks to produce, and the
"Year's Ten Best Sites" book should be ready by the end of
May.
WINNING
How much visibility will the winners get?
For most winners, the most valuable publicity comes from
posting our "award winner" logo on their support site,
where it will be seen by customers and partners who visit
the site. We also provide trophies and certificates that
help remind your own support people about what a great
job they're doing. And we blitz the world with press
releases, which occasionally produce stories about
individual winners. At least one large PC manufacturer in
Austin, Texas, now brags about "award-winning support" in
their TV commercials, which suggests that winning this
award can have serious marketing value.
Is there an awards event?
Yes. We'll honor the ten winning sites and Hall of Fame
entrants at an awards ceremony during the Services Industry
Summit in late spring.
How long can I display the awards logo?
There's no limit (and no licensing fee, incidentally).
If we don't win, what will we get?
A lot. First, we'll show you how the judges scored your
site in each of our 25 performance areas, and then
compare these scores against category benchmarks to show
your relative strengths and weaknesses. We'll also show
you the text comments that the judges made about your
site. And you'll get a complimentary copy of "The Year's
Ten Best Web Support Sites," a book-length review of the
year's winners (a $95 value).
Can we find out where we ranked?
No. We discourage the notion that Web support can be
measured on a simple linear scale. We identify a group
of ten companies that embody overall excellence and we
show individual participants how they compare against
category averages. Beyond that, we never disclose or publish
individual rankings.
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