Cosmetics Magazine along with its 19 presenting sponsors is pleased to be bringing you the 9th annual Cosmetics Outstanding Service Awards (COSAs) on Thursday November 18th, 2010 in Toronto at the Westin Harbour Castle Hotel. This special evening is an opportunity to recognize those individuals in the cosmetics industry who do much more than just their jobs. They have made a career out of making sure their customers thoroughly enjoy the shopping experience.

Nominations for the 2010 COSA Awards are now closed. We received over 800 nominations. Thanks to all who submitted.

Finalists will be announced in September.

The COSA program honours the outstanding customer service achievements of cosmeticians, beauty advisors, fragrance advisors and demonstrators and draws public attention to the important – and far too often unrecognized – work that they do.

Customer service is the number one factor in the success or failure of a business in Canada today. You can have the most spectacular product but if you can’t offer the customer exceptional service, it won’t succeed. That’s why the remarkable achievements of these individuals are so important to the beauty business as a whole. Their actions and dedication inspire us all to offer even better service.

There are 17 awards and one overall winner this year. The winners of the team awards receive a cheque for $2,000 and each individual winner receives a $1,000 cheque along with a silver COSA pin created by Canadian Jewelry designer Karen Palmer. He or she also receives a crystal COSA award commemorating the evening and a gift basket containing over $2,500.00 worth of product from the event sponsors as well as a plaque to display at their counter. And while there are only 17 winners, we wish to acknowledge the finalists for their great efforts. Their names will be featured in the September issue of Cosmetics Magazine as well as displayed during the award dinner.

To become a COSA winner you have to go through a few steps to ensure you are, in fact, the best of the best. You would first need to be nominated by a peer, vendor or retailer. This year we had over 900 nominations.

Our panel of judges reads each nomination, and selects their personal favourites from each category. The judges as a group then select those individuals who they feel deserve to be finalists. Link to 2009 COSA Finalists.

Usually the choice of finalists is quite unanimous and easily agreed upon as there are nominations that definitely stand out from the rest. At this point the short-listed individuals are mystery shopped three separate times over a period of three weeks, each time by a different mystery shopper. Once the results are in we have another meeting, where we select the winner in each category.

The final category is the Overall Winner. This person is selected from the group of category winners. This is decided by phone interview and after reading the answers to a questionnaire that we request the category winners fill out. At the end of this process, the judges cast their secret ballot to choose an Overall Winner. The judges don’t know who has been selected until the evening of the gala when the Overall Winner is announced at the very end of the evening.

The 2009 COSA winners. Click to see the photo gallery of our 2009 Event. Photos by Brian Summers.

Our 2009 COSA gala was held on November 12. See the photo gallery from
that event.

The COSA awards happen each fall at a lavish gala dinner in Toronto. The event is attended by over 500 sponsors, industry members and media / PR personnel.

Heather Marrin
heather.marrin@rci.rogers.com
416-764-1669

Jim Hicks
jim.hicks@cosmetics.rogers.com
416-764-1664