Growing up, my parents had a saying whenever I'd crow a bit too loudly about something I felt particularly proud of: "Don't break your arm patting yourself on the back." They never made me feel that I shouldn't be proud of my accomplishments -- quite the contrary -- but rather that self-congratulatory behavior is unproductive, unbecoming and unreliable. It is for this reason that we implemented ShopperApproved's independent customer review platform late last year.

As proud as we are of our commitment to our customers, our products and the way we do business, looking in the mirror and telling yourself that "I'm good enough, I'm smart enough and doggone it, people like me" isn't worth a hill of beans in the marketplace.

Truth be told, I was very nervous when we first rolled it out. What if we're not good enough? What if we're not smart enough? And what if, doggone it, people don't like us?!

Thankfully, my fears proved to be unfounded and the nearly 500 customers (as of this writing) who have taken the time out of their busy schedules to review DrumART have been almost uniformly positive in their responses. I have read every one of them, and I have been amused, lifted and humbled by them all.

That said, when my colleague Shawn came to work the other day and said, "Dude, did you see the ShopperApproved? It's at 5.0," I brushed him off. "Yeah, right," I said. That couldn't be correct -- there have been a couple 4 star reviews in there, right? Well, apparently ShopperApproved only rounds to the hundredth place, and the overwhelming majority of 5-star reviews has taken us from 4.99 to 5.0. Thanks, ShopperApproved!

Reading this later?  See how we're doing since 2017!

So, while remaining mindful of my parents' advice, I'm also very proud of our accomplishments. I'm not naive or stupid enough to think that our average will remain at a full 5-stars for long, but for right now it's a pretty cool feeling. I'm also well aware that our ShopperApproved score is both an indicator of the work we do every day and a beacon guiding our future efforts.

To our existing clients, my sincere and humble thanks. And to our future clients, I hope that we can live up to your rightfully high expectations.

Long live DrumART!