Award Force vs ContestPad: Which is a better fit?

Michelle M.: Hi, I'm Michelle, marketing and communications manager in the retail industry. And my rating for Award Force is five. So when we started looking at award platforms, of course, we saw lots of great platforms, but they are extremely expensive. One of them was open water and it was really nice, but we just simply could not afford the Cadillac. What we liked about Award Force is that it was a Cadillac on a pentose price and it worked for us because we only use it one or two months a year and then we'd put it to bed and then we pull it out next year and use it again. So there were several reasons why we chose Award Force. The first one was of course the price. They had several levels of prices that we could choose from and for us, it gave us that flexibility of choosing the level of need that we had. Secondly, the ease of use of the platform, not only from an administrator standpoint but also from a user standpoint was really good for us. And then the third one was that it was the customer service was fantastic. When we look at the customer service of the other platforms, they weren't as responsive as Award Force and Award Force is there all the time. I mean, it didn't matter when I sent them an email, I got a response back from a real person and the information they gave me back was very helpful and they stayed with me until my problem was solved. When it comes to ease of onboarding into the platform, I was a novice, I had never done this before ever and here I was in charge of, A, buying this platform and then getting it ready for our users. And so what I would say is they really do a lot of handholding and well it was not super easy, it was definitely plug and play. And you had lots of options and those options if you didn't understand them, there was always someone there to explain them for you, if not do it for you. I had many times when I was like I had no idea what this is asking me, and I would email customer service and they'd be like, no problem we'll walk you through it or we'll just set it up for you. So that's what I really liked about Award Force. So if I were giving advice to someone that was onboarding with Award Force, I would say of the three levels, start out with the lowest level, which is the easiest and least complicated and go from there and see if you like it. I think setup is very simple and customer service is right there with you the entire time and just get a feel for, do you like this type of customer service? It's really all electronic, so it's email, you're not going to talk to someone on the phone. But they are with you 100% of the time, all hours of the day and night, these people, I don't think ever sleep. And if they do sleep, they hand it off to someone else who takes care of it. So I would just say get your feet wet, try it and see if you like it. I did.