2023 Top Rated Firm Registration

No. There are some exemptions, as follows:

a) New clients, who have been a client for less than 3 months

b) M&A clients, whose original firm was acquired by or merged with yours in the last 12 months

c) Clients without an email address

d) Celebrity clients

e) Clients who are unwell or infirm

f) Clients of advisers who are under notice

g) Clients who have previously reviewed you on VouchedFor

h) Corporate clients

i) Clients who have not paid you for a service within the last 12 months

No, you can qualify as a Top Rated Firm for free, as long as all your advisers have ‘Starter’ VouchedFor profiles so they can gather reviews. However if you wish to use the Top Rated Firm promotional assets and feature in the 2023 Guide a license fee (determined by your firm size) will apply, which we will waive completely if your advisers’ membership fees equal or exceed the license fee.

The license fee bands are as follows:

5 or less advisers = £540+VAT

6-10 advisers = £1,080+VAT

11-20 advisers = £2,160+VAT

21-30 advisers = £3,240+VAT

31-40 advisers = £4,320+VAT

40+ advisers = £5,000+VAT

Yes. The deadline to qualify as a Top Rated Firm 2023 is 31st December 2022. We will assess which firms have qualified on this date.

It depends how many qualify. Space is finite so if more firms qualify than we have space for, we will feature the best large, medium and small firms based on their rating. All Top Rated Firms will be highlighted within the listings of any of their individual advisers who qualify as Top Rated Advisers in the Guide. All Top Rated Firms will be featured in the digital guide and will have access to the Promotional Assets (point 2 dependent).

An adviser ‘counts’ towards a firm name based on the FCA ID they have added to VouchedFor. 

There are 3 main ways:

a) Top Rated Firms sign a pledge to invite all non exempt clients and agree to VouchedFor auditing them to check this.

b) Data trends, we’ll be able to tell if a firm’s reviewers’ profiles are inconsistent with other firms’.

c) In marketing Top Rated Firms, we’ll make the criteria clear, so if a client who hasn’t been invited to leave a review sees this, they are likely to ask us why.

Possibly. You need enough reviews for us to be confident saying you are great! So you EITHER need a minimum of 100 reviews as a firm OR you need a minimum of 25 reviews per adviser to qualify as a Top Rated Firm.

At least you tried, which is testament to you ‘walking the walk’ with transparency! Plus, in trying to qualify, you will have built up many valuable reviews which will help you generate huge value from VouchedFor and beyond at both adviser and firm-level.