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Eve Tahmincioglu

Primary author Eve Tahmincioglu has been covering small business and entrepreneurship for more than a decade. She regularly writes about small business issues for the New York Times and BusinessWeek's SmallBiz magazine. She also writes the Your Career column for MSNBC.com. She is the author of "From the Sandbox to the Corner Office."



Staying off the Better Business Bureau’s bad-boy list

Posted: Tuesday, May 13, 2008 2:24 AM by Eve Tahmincioglu
Filed Under: , , ,

Savvy consumers and small firms owners are increasingly checking the Better Business Bureau’s list of businesses before they make a purchase or decide to partner with a company.

That’s bad news for small businesses that some how end up on the BBB’s bad-boy list.

OK, it’s not actually called a bad boy list, but if your company ends up in the BBB’s data base with an unsatisfactory rating you can bet you’ll probably lose at least a few sales as a result.

The BBB has reliability reports on about 4 million businesses and of those about 24 percent have an unsatisfactory rating, says Alison Preszler, a spokeswoman for the organization.

So how do you keep from ending up with a “F” on your BBB report card?

I’ve talked to many a small business owner that complained to me that they should never have gotten an unsatisfactory rating in the first place; that the customer who complained just wanted more than they paid for.

If this happens, Preszler says, “I’d encourage them to take the time to sit down with their local BBB and discuss why they have an unsatisfactory record and what the company can do to change that status.  In some cases, it would mean taking a look at complaints and making an effort to resolve the issues with complainants. In other cases, it might mean making a change in company practices; for example, if we received a lot of complaints from consumers regarding contract disputes, we might ask the company to take further steps to ensure the consumer fully understands the terms of the contract they are signing.”

For the rest of you who want to make sure you never get on bad rating, she offered a list of tips to stay on the right side of the BBB:

Respond to complaints.
Companies need to promptly respond to complaints filed with BBB, and make a good faith effort to resolve all such complaints in accordance with generally accepted good business practices. Typically, if a company doesn’t respond to two or more complaints, it will have an impact on their rating with BBB.
 
Fix any underlying causes of a pattern of complaints.
Sometimes, a company will say, “But we responded to all of the complaints, why do we still have an unsatisfactory rating?”  That’s when we explain that it’s not enough to respond to complaints if there is an underlying cause for a large number of grievances.  If a company is continually misleading consumers, it isn’t enough to keep saying “Sorry!” The company needs to take steps to stop the practice that is leading to so many angry customers.
 
Adhere to standards of advertising and selling.
Here is our code of advertising at the national level.
It’s a bit lengthy but the basic gist is BE HONEST!
 
Consistently Do Good Work.
BBB Reliability Reports are a reflection of the company’s quality of service as well as their customer service. A company that does shoddy work or provides a poor product will likely have more complaints filed against them with BBB.
 
Sounds logical, no?

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Comments

from my experience with the bbb, the complaints generally come from a customer "who wants more than he or she purchased." then the bbb will ding me for sticking to my customer policy. however, paying the bbb a yearly approximate membership fee of $500.00 can turn a "f" grade to an "a". i think that's called extortion. therefore, i don't care for the bbb.

carl (Sent Sunday, May 18, 2008 9:59 AM)

Staying off the Bad Boy List has been easy: in the 100 years my firm has been in business we have never been investigated by the BBB; honesty is our best quality.  With this in mind, I went to their site this morning, found the branch for my area, and surveyed their list of “BBB Accredited Businesses” in my field.  The fact that my business was not listed begs the question: How does one get on their accredited list?  This is, as you may suspect, a rhetorical question.  In fact, I have been approached twice in the last three years by a telemarketer representing an organization he says is the BBB.  He had one pitch: purchase a membership and my firm would be listed in their directory.  

Now, as I survey the situation, perhaps it would be better to put more emphasis in squeezing the budget than delivering good service to the people in my community.

M. S. Jones, La Center, KY (Sent Sunday, May 18, 2008 12:13 PM)

I had a customer complain about me because she paid for her first appointment and I invited her back a second time for free due to tecnical difficulties (that were resolved). She was unhappy with how her baby was performing for the FREE appointment and requested a refund for what was a free appointment.  Some people will never be happy.

Maria Christopoulos, Fairfax, VA (Sent Wednesday, June 18, 2008 10:29 PM)



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