Your BBB Foundation Serving Northwest Florida is pleased to announce the winners of the seventh annual Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, Customer Service Excellence Award and Student Ethics Scholarship from its District III area which covers the 10 easternmost counties in its service area.
The Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics was created to publicly recognize business and charities that insist on exceptionally high standards of behavior dealing with customers, vendors and employees.
This year’s Torch Award winner was selected because although much of their work is largely unseen, the quality of their work – or lack thereof – can have a lasting impact. In an industry that has seen many competitors come and go,
Sommer Sound Systems has managed to stand out in the marketplace by enforcing a set of policies and procedures by which their employees must abide, insisting that any advertising is created by the owners, who refuse to participate in any negative campaigns, and by being selective in who they hire to work for the local company.
BBB’s Customer Service Excellence Award was added to the Torch Award program three years ago to recognize individual employees who stand out in their organizations.
Barbara Cazimero, from Cox Building Corporation/Cox Pools, was selected because she is well respected by both coworkers and customers alike. She is responsible for providing customer service and does so in a “professional, courteous manner,” according to Julie Vinson, Executive Administrator at Cox Pools. But her job doesn’t stop there. She has responsibilities that the customer never sees, yet they are responsibilities that could impact the entire experience the customer has with the business, and Barbara excels at these tasks.
In addition to recognizing ethical businesses, your BBB also awarded three, $1,000 Student Ethics Scholarships to local students.
Oliver Bryce Gerber, from Wewahitchka High School,
Saajan Patel, from Rutherford High School, and
Chet Alan Seaman, from A Crawford Mosley High School, were this year’s recipients from your BBB’s District III area. The scholarship winners or their representative were asked to read their essay on character building, required as part of the application process for their scholarship.
For additional information about the Torch Award for Marketplace Ethics, Customer Service Excellence Award and Student Ethics Scholarship, start with bbb.org.
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Photos from the event are available at
http://www.flickr.com/photos/nwfl_bbb/sets/72157629756416014/
