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It’s The Most Wonderful Time Of The Year – Best Of 2012 is fast approaching

We are entering the holiday season and that means family, friends, too much food, and, most importantly for the companies on our site, Best-Of year end.

Each year HomeStars.com awards companies who have done fantastic work, based on their customer’s feedback.  We apply an algorithm to each company’s listing to calculate who has the most customer reviews from the year with the highest ratings in each category. Companies have less than 4 weeks to get those reviews in!

Award Criteria:

Once the HomeStars Team is back in the saddle in January (the HomeStars office will be closed from December 22nd to January 2nd ) we start compiling The Best-Of lists in each competing city. For the 2012 year, HomeStars will be awarding companies in Toronto, Hamilton, Eastern Ontario, Calgary, Edmonton,  Vancouver, South Western Ontario, and for the first time the Durham Ontario region.  We work really hard to ensure that each winner is well deserved and we have a selection criteria to help our Best Of selection team figure that out. Determining winners can take awhile so expect the results to be announced in late January. Here are the criteria for the 2012 winners:

• Only 2012 Reviews count – All reviews must be received before midnight of December 31st EST.
• Companies must have a minimum of 5 reviews in 2012 to qualify for the award.
• Awards are determined based on the HomeStars ‘Best Of’ match algorithm, which uses both the quality and quantity of reviews.
• Companies can only win in one category and service area.
• Companies must be in the category they wish to be considered for before midnight on December 31st.
• Companies listed in multiple categories will be considered in all of their categories for a best fit win. Reviews and ratings will be the deciding factor.
• Companies who have multiple service areas attached to their listing, can only be considered in their primary address that appears on their listing’s account. Companies are welcome to change their office address temporarily between December 31st and the announcement date if they wish to compete in a different service area they have purchased although they must have reviews from clients in that service area.
• Suspicious or fraudulent review activity during the 2012 year will be taken into consideration.
• Tie situations will be settled by HomeStars staff based on the quality of reviews and company involvement with the site (think: awesome company responses to reviews, forum activity,  event participation, twitter and facebook mentions, etc)
• Once the announcement is made all winner decisions are final.

Get your reviews in!

There are only four weeks left in 2012. To homeowners out there, there is no need to procrastinate! Write the 2 reviews you have been putting off all year and you can get a $10 TIm Hortons Gift Card before December 21st! Your review might be the difference between your favourite company winning the award or not, so write the review now!

Celebrations!

We will have a celebratory awards ceremony in each city awarded, the locations of which will be announced in January. These events are always a great time and everyone is welcome! Check out photos of some of last year’s events below.

Toronto

Hamilton

Calgary

Eastern Ontario