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To: mrm01 who wrote (3)	2/16/2000 8:13:00 AM
From: Glenn M	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 7

Hi Cal, I was going over Value Star's web page. I was curious how a business would get a Value Star cetification. I figured the business would just have to pay a fee, happily this is what I found:How Companies Are Rated Only the best businesses earn ValueStar Certified© To qualify for ValueStar Certified©, and to earn a listing within The Consumer ValueStar Report and ValueStar.com a company or practice must apply for and pass all four steps of the rating process. This rating process is designed to identify those service providers that truly have very high customer satisfaction. Every service provider applying for ValueStar Certified© must pay a fee for this rating, pass or fail. Each service provider that passes and earns ValueStar Certified© must undergo a re-rating every 12 months. Service Providers that do not pass in a subsequent rating must immediately cease use of the ValueStar Certified© symbol and are excluded from the next published Consumer ValueStar Report. Each non-passing firm must wait 12 months to re-apply to be rated. Step ONE Customer Satisfaction Rating To make sure an applicant company's customer satisfaction rating is accurate and unbiased, this part of the rating is audited by the Public Research Institute of San Francisco State University, experts in survey research. First, a random sample of approximately 400 customers is selected from all of an applicant company's records for the previous 12 to 36 months. A company cannot pick and choose which customers the institute contacts. Second, approximately 100 customers are asked to rate how satisfied they are with the value they received from the company being rated and if they would use the company again. The customers' identities and individual responses are kept completely confidential. Third, based on the customers' answers, the company's ValueStar customer satisfaction rating is calculated. Only if the company scores very good to outstanding by its own customers, does the company pass this vital step in the rating process. Thus, no company that scores below an eighty-five, out of a possible one hundred (a perfect score), is allowed to pass this rating step. Step TWO The applicant's complaint status is checked with industry specific and general complaint bureaus. Step THREE The applicant must have a valid license in good standing for the major service it offers to the public. Step FOUR The applicant's insurance agents must provide ValueStar with written certificates of insurance showing that they have workers' compensation, liability, or specialized insurance coverage where necessary. What ValueStar Certified© is Not It is not a promise of a company's future performance or your actual satisfaction with that company. But, it is a promise that the four-step-rating process has been performed accurately, according to the description supplied by ValueStar, and without bias. Furthermore, we believe that the methodology used to ascertain this rating and to award ValueStar Certified© is a fair representation of the company's high customer satisfaction level during the previous year.