Ballots for the 2023 Atlanta’s Best Awards are in, and you folks knocked it out of the park. We are overwhelmed by the support we received, both in voter turnout, and company support!

The businesses and attractions that were up for voting in their respective categories were nominated by Atlanta metro area residents in September. The best of the best earned their spots on the ballot.

Thousands of votes were cast to show support for businesses and attractions in our community. We were overwhelmed with the enthusiastic response and can’t wait to share the finalists of each category.

What Happens Now

We want the Atlanta’s Best Awards to be as fair as possible, so our team is working hard to calculate the results and verify the findings. We use a scoring system that relies on a combination of votes from Atlanta area residents and reviews from Google.

Count Votes

Who had the most votes? Most business awards are prone to spamming, duplicate votes, or cheating. Atlanta’s Best only counts unique votes for each category, and we use text message verification for each ballot. While technology makes counting easy, we still need to verify the results.

BBB Review

The Atlanta’s Best has partnered with the Better Business Bureau to certify our finalists. The top vote-getters must also have a passing grade with the BBB in order to become a finalist. Their rating system utilizes a grading scale just like you used in school, going from an A+ down to an F, graded on 17 different factors. This rating represents a business’s overall trustworthiness and their good-faith efforts to address customer concerns.

Count Reviews

The Atlanta’s Best isn’t like most “Best of” contests, which simply count votes. We realize that the community has already been showing their support for the “best” by leaving reviews all year long, so we’re going to count every 5-star review published on Google within the last 12 months.

Calculate Score

While votes and reviews signify great work in the last year, overall ratings tell us how nominees have done long term. The mean rating from these platforms will be used in conjunction with 5-star reviews and votes to determine the winners.

Number of Votes + (Number of 5-star Reviews x Average Rating) = Score

Announce Finalists

The top nominees of each category will be publicly announced once we’ve verified our results. Finalists will also be notified by letter and email as soon as possible.

Announce Winners

Winners will be announced at the Atlanta’s Best Awards Ceremony in October. Finalists will be invited to purchase tickets for the celebration. The ceremony includes a red carpet entrance, photos, and other special prizes and opportunities.

Thank You

We’re grateful to everyone for the support and participation in this year’s Atlanta’s Best Awards. It’s been a lot of fun, and we’re already looking forward to next year’s contest!