Reply Index · the badge

Anyone can write "fast, friendly service". This one is measured.

A shop earns a badge by answering a real customer enquiry it did not know was measured. The badge is issued on that measurement, checked again every quarter, and withdrawn when the answers stop.

How a shop gets one

The enquiry arrives first. Every business in the trade with a published email address receives the same customer question, on a weekday morning, from an ordinary customer. Nothing is sold and nothing is offered.
The reply is measured from the minute the enquiry was sent to that address: how long it took, whether it carried a price, whether it said when the work could be done.
The badge follows the measurement. It cannot be bought without one, and payment never changes what the measurement says.

The three badges

Price and time, first reply

Answered with a figure and a working time in the first message, without being asked twice. Of the 317 Ontario repair shops that answered, 11 did this.

$690per year, per location

Answers in under 1 hour

Replied inside 60 minutes of the enquiry landing. 118 shops of the 317 that answered did this.

$490per year, per location

Answers within 24 hours

Replied on the first day. 292 shops of the 317 that answered did this. Another 2,734 Ontario shops received the same enquiry and never replied.

$290per year, per location

Prices are in Canadian dollars. A second and every further location of the same business is 40 percent less. A shop holding the $690 badge may display the two below it.

What the fee covers

Licence to display the badge	on the site, in the window, in email and print, for 12 months
A verification page	the badge links to the shop's own line: date, reply time, what was quoted
Re-measurement every quarter	a new enquiry, sent the same way, from an address the shop has not seen
Withdrawal when it stops being true	2 missed quarters and the badge comes down

The withdrawal rule is the reason the badge is worth paying for. A mark that is never taken away means nothing, and a customer learns that within a year.

What it does not buy

It does not buy a place in the index. Every shop measured appears there, badge or no badge, and the line reads what the measurement found. It does not buy removal of a line, a better reply time, or silence about a slow one.

Getting yours

Write to badge@replyindex.com with the name of your shop. If a measurement already exists, the answer says which badge it earned and carries the invoice. If it does not, an enquiry goes out on the next weekday morning, and the answer follows the reply.