The Outstanding Service to Customers Awards (OSCAs), organised by Bracknell Regeneration Partnership (BRP), celebrated the best in customer service across all the shops in the town centre, across Princess Square, Charles Square and High Street.

The glittering ceremony, held at The Grange hotel on Thursday last week, served up a three-course meal to guests before the awards were presented.

The evening was hosted by TV and radio presenter Steve Hyland, with speeches by Rob Morris, general manager of BRP, and Helen Barnett, communications and marketing manager for BRP.

Among the awards were Mystery Customer Measures (MCM), where stores were visited by people pretending to be customers who scored them and their staff on a number of factors including service, presentation, product knowledge and cleanliness.

Four store awards were dished out, while four individual staff members were also honoured.

McDonalds bagged the award for best café/dining establishment, with coffee firm Costa confirmed as runner-up. Fellow coffee brand Love Coffee was highly commended.

Popular gaming store Virtual Games won the independent store category, with The Framing Centre crowned runner-up and hairdressers Marc Antoni highly commended.

The Body Shop was highly commended in the small/medium chain store category, with runner-up F Hinds beaten by Topman and Topshop for the top prize.

The award for best large chain store went to Argos, with department store Bentalls named runner-up, while Boots was highly commended.

Connor Lynch, from Topman, Lisa Forbes, from Cargo and Karen Mecklenburgh, from McDonalds, were given Retail Hero awards for their excellent service to the mystery customers, while Zubier Abdullah was awarded a Special Achievement prize for juggling his business Top Class Barbers with caring for his seriously-ill daughter.

Mr Morris said: “This is the sixth year we have held these awards and it is always a great celebration of customer service. As a town centre we strive for excellence in customer service and you can see that Bracknell is delivering consistent results, including beating one of our nearest neighbours in Camberley.

“However, we always want to be better and there is room for improvement so, while this is a great celebration, we look forward to it being even better next year.”