The 2027 Client Choice Awards are underway
Industry awards based on your clients' feedback
Awards based on client feedback
Only clients’ voices count in these awards for professional services.
The Client Choice Awards recognise excellent client experience and service performance in accounting, law, and built and natural environment consulting firms.
Rewarding firms with the highest client sentiment scores, the Client Choice Awards are based entirely on independent client feedback. No panels, judges or self-nominations. Just clients’ ratings meticulously and independently researched by Beaton, the leading Voice of Your Clients® specialists.
Industry awards for professional services
The Awards are open to firms of all sizes operating in Australia and/or New Zealand in the categories listed below.
To find out more, select the profession your firm operates.
Accounting & Consulting Services
Built & Natural Environment Consulting
Law & Related Services
How the awards are judged
An online survey is completed by the clients of your firm and others in the market. The survey asks your clients to rate and comment on firms’ performance in delivering services on a range of criteria including quality, value for money, price and trust.
The results from that survey are then scored and the winners are announced based purely on the survey scores.
Trusted by over 700 participating firms
Measure your performance
For more than 20 years, Beaton has compiled the largest dataset of independent client insights, benchmarking, and tracking available on the market. The data collected by our annual survey informs both the results of the Client Choice Awards and the insights delivered by the Beaton Benchmarks suite of actionable client feedback reports.
Entrants into the Client Choice Awards have the option to also subscribe to a Beaton Benchmarks report. These reports show how your firm is perceived by your clients and benchmarks your results against other firms in your market. More information about Beaton’s unique, independent benchmarking offering can be found here.
Timeline
Client Choice Awards success stories
By the numbers
Beaton, the leading researcher in Voice of Your Clients® services, manages the independent research behind the awards.
We have analysed over 410,000 responses since we began in 2005. We are leaders in online research of clients sentiment and preferences. We apply best practice cyber-security standards.
Supported by the industry
In the early 1990s the Australian Corporate Lawyers Association, now the Association of Corporate Counsel, and Chartered Secretaries Australia, now the Governance Institute of Australia, were the first to support our studies of professional services firms and their clients.
Today many Australian and New Zealand professional associations are integral partners in our research.
The partnership constituted amongst professional associations, professional services firms, their clients and Beaton in our studies is unique. Nowhere else is the depth of involvement and trust so great and enduring.
Following are the professional societies that have far-sightedly supported the Awards over the years:
Measure your performance
All firms entering this Awards category will receive a summarised copy of the feedback collected from their clients as surveys are completed (aside from those clients who opt to remain anonymous), to keep track of how they are performing.
Judging of category winners will take place after the survey period closes and all Winners will be announced in March 2027.
Following the Winners announcement, where there is relevant data available – applies to firms over $30mil only – participants will be able to purchase additional reports produced by Beaton:
- Firm feedback report – a detailed analysis of all the feedback collected from your firm’s clients for all the questions in our survey and with functionality to filter the results by service line, client industry sector and geography (where applicable)
- Industry benchmarking report – an aggregated report of all data collected as part of the Client Choice Awards allowing you to benchmark the performance of your firm at a service line, client industry sector and geography level (subject to the number of firms entering and the volume of sample collected.
The prices for these reports will be announced in due course and communicated to all entrants.
Media coverage
All finalists and winners feature prominently in Beaton’s digital media channels and those of our supporting professional associations in the lead up to and after the awards announcement.
Secure and confidential
Beaton and the Client Choice Awards fully comply with Australian and New Zealand privacy law. As a specialist in market research for professional services firms, Beaton places the highest priority on maintaining the privacy and security of all client data.
Click here for more information about Beaton’s privacy and confidentiality policy.
FAQs
How are the awards judged?
Entry into the Client Choice Awards is free.
The awards are judged purely on the survey scores we receive back from your clients.
Our online survey asks your clients to rate and comment on your firm’s performance in delivering services on a range of criteria including quality, value for money, pricing, and trust.
Who is eligible to enter the Client Choice Awards?
To be eligible to enter you must provide services to clients in Australia and/or New Zealand in at least one of these categories:
- Accounting & Consulting Services
- Built & Natural Environment Consulting
- Law & Related Services
Can we enter if we operate in multiple countries?
You have one of three entry options if your firm has operations in both Australia and New Zealand.
Australia only
By choosing ‘Australia only,’ you are entering your Australian-based operations into the Client Choice Awards as a single firm. Your Australian operations may have overseas clients, including clients in New Zealand. You should include all these clients in your submitted client list if they have commissioned work from your Australian operations.
New Zealand only
By choosing ‘New Zealand only,’ you are entering your New Zealand-based operations into the Client Choice Awards as a single firm. Your New Zealand operations may have overseas clients, including clients in Australia. You should include all these clients in your submitted client list if they have commissioned work from your New Zealand operations.
Australia & New Zealand
By choosing ‘Australia & New Zealand’, you are entering your Australian and New Zealand operations into the Client Choice Awards as one firm, and your entry will be treated as one firm in the results. In this situation, you should include all clients, including overseas clients, in your submitted client list if they have commissioned work from your Australian-based and/or New Zealand-based operations.
If both the Australian operations and the New Zealand operations of a firm with the same name choose to enter the Client Choice Awards with separate applications (i.e. ‘Australia only’ and ‘New Zealand only’), these entries will be treated as different firms in the Client Choice Awards, and we will add a suffix to the name of the firm in the Client Choice Awards results so that they are identified as such, e.g. Firm ABC – New Zealand.
How do the awards collect client data?
How feedback data is collected will change depending on the size of your firm.
Smaller firms
If you are a smaller firm by revenue (<$30m), you will be sent a unique survey link to send to your clients directly. Using this link, clients can provide feedback on the services you have provided.
Larger firms
If you are a larger firm by revenue (>$30m), you will need to provide us with a list of your client contacts before the fieldwork starts. We will clean this list, de-duplicate the list with other participating firms and Beaton will send the survey to all clients.
Irrespective of size, your client data will be held securely with the highest levels of confidentiality. We keep this data for only as long as is necessary to complete the research. For more information, please consult our Privacy Policy.
Is my client data secure and confidential?
Security
Beaton takes its obligations under Australian and New Zealand privacy law very seriously. Any data collected is stored in onshore servers. We pseudonymise (i.e. remove all identifying information) feedback data as soon as is practicable. For more information, please consult our Privacy Policy.
Confidentiality
By participating in Beaton research, you are engaging Beaton to act as your research agents to collect client feedback. Any disclosure to Beaton of client information is for the secondary purpose of collecting feedback, which is directly related to the primary purpose of providing services to your clients.
What do we do if we miss the cut-off for registration?
If you miss the cut-off for research and database submission, it’s okay; you can still participate in the study, however, commitment to purchase the final report is needed to do so.
The cut-off dates listed are for free participation and eligibility for an award.
Can we register in more than one category?
The award categories that you can take part in are determined by the revenue of your organisation. Each award category listed above has the relevant revenue band noted in parentheses, if your organisation sits within the noted revenue band then you will be eligible for adjudication in that category (subject to collecting sufficient client feedback).
Against whom are we competing?
Each profession has a set of profession-specific award categories, where you will be compared against other firms like yours in your revenue category.
We also have a set of profession-agnostic awards, where you will be competing against all firms who have entered the Client Choice Awards across all professions: Accounting & Consulting Services, Built & Natural Environment Consulting and Law & Related Services.
What kind of reporting can we get?
Judging of category winners will take place after the survey period closes and all winners will be announced per the timeline above.
Following the winners announcement, participants will be able to purchase feedback reports produced by Beaton and receive their free summary client feedback score card.
All entrants will be advised of the reports that are available to purchase.
Do we have to buy a report to participate?
No! All firms that participate will receive a complimentary summary client feedback score card. There is no obligation on any participating firm to purchase any of the in-depth Beaton Benchmarks reports.
Should I participate every year?
We strongly encourage all professional services firms to participate each year, even if you have no intention of purchasing a report that year. It is better to have collected the data than to realise you need the data later and not have it readily available.
Annual participation will also mean we will have robust tracking data available that will allow you to assess change on a long-term basis.
How can we fix a mistake in our entry form?
If you made a mistake in completing your entry form, email
ewa.foroncewicz@beatonglobal.com
and explain what needs to be changed. Save the confirmation email you received.
Still have questions? Please contact us and one of our team will be in touch to help.
View our terms and conditions for full details.
Want to take part in Client Choice Awards?
To enrol your firm in the Client Choice Awards just click the ‘Enter your firm here’ button.
Simply select your firm’s profession and size, read through what’s involved and complete the short entry form.
