Technology has Helped BBB Resolve Problems
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO BBB for the Spokesman Review, 1/18/09
Ah, the Internet. It has changed our world at the BBB, as it has for most businesses, and it has both increased and decreased our workload in ways I never imagined.
In 2008, people requested more than 400,000 individual company reports from our BBB office. That’s up over 100,000 from the previous year. More than 95 percent of those reports were found at bbb.org, with just a small number delivered over the phone. This is good news, because if customers check before they buy, the number of complaints we receive should decrease correspondingly.
Why? If, before buying a car, you narrow the selection down to a couple of dealers, and then check their company reports with us before making your final decision, chances are you will not end up buying from a dealer with a high complaint volume, a pattern of complaints, or someone who simply does not respond to them. The same strategy works for business as varied as accountants and waterproofing services. You can get a list of BBB-accredited businesses by type of business from our Web site, and last year more than 34,000 people did just that.
The good news is our complaints did drop. Last year we closed 5,221 complaints locally, down slightly from 2007. The bad news is our resolution rate was not quite as good, and I attribute that to an increase in companies who have gone out of business. It is hard to resolve an issue when one of the parties is nowhere to be found.
We resolved 69 percent of the complaints, unless the business involved a BBB-accredited business – those had a 100 percent resolution rate.
Locally, the top three issues we dealt with in 2008 were:
1. Phony check scams.
2. Fraudulent work-at-home offers.
3. Sweepstakes and lottery scams.
Seems folks still want to believe there is a pot of gold at the end of that rainbow. There is not and never has been. But as times get tough, more people want to believe they really did win the Canadian Lottery, even though they never entered it – if it were to exist.
As the year went on, we saw some disturbing trends:
1. Customers looking for ways to get out of a purchase or receive a price reduction without any basis.
2. Tempers flaring much faster and people making more unreasonable demands.
As businesses cut back and do more with less, the last thing they need is the outrageous customer. Solving problems with reasonable people is a pleasure, but there are few things as draining as dealing with someone you know you will never be able to please. If you feel this challenge is happening more often, you’re not alone.
If you need help bringing reality to a situation, that is what we do at the BBB. It is not always pretty, as some people resist being held accountable.
The biggest change at the BBB this year is the way we report on businesses. After years of testing a computer algorithm that crunches data and assigns grades to businesses, the majority of BBBs across the country have launched the A-to-F letter grade system.
Now it is easier to see how a company measures up to its competition. Rather than the old “satisfactory” or “unsatisfactory” rating, you will see a grade, like a report card. I encourage business owners to take a look at their companies’ grades, their competition’s grades and – businesses and consumers alike – the grade of anyone they don’t have prior experience with. Simply visit BBB.org, plug in your ZIP code and click “Check out a business or charity.”
A few things to remember:
1. We report on both BBB-accredited and non-accredited businesses.
2. If we have no report, you can ask us to develop one.
3. If we have no report, that sometimes is a bad sign.
4. BBB.org has information on companies all over the U.S. and Canada.
5. You can inquire anonymously, but we don’t accept anonymous complaints.
Correction
In my last column I wrote about price gouging and how the recent snowfall affected commerce in our area. It brought me a lot of positive comments. One thing I do want to clear up, though, is my praise for the business that held snowblower prices steady. The company I mentioned was Country Home Supply, but the seller that honored its advertised price was Country Homes Power. I took the name from an e-mail and did not make sure I had it correct. So there you have the rest of the snowblower story.
Snowfall Separates Good Neighbors from Gougers
by Jan Quintrall, President/CEO BBB for the Spokesman Review, 1/4/09
My favorite quote is: “The difference between an adventure and an ordeal is attitude.”
Having the right attitude over the past three weeks has been critical. Watching how different people handle the challenge of the weather has been interesting. But watching how different businesses have handled the sale of items suddenly in demand and in short supply has been even more interesting.
Days before the snow began, Country Homes Supply ran an ad for snow blowers. There was a price in the ad, and once the storm began Dec. 17, the store sold them quickly. Expecting another shipment on Dec. 26, Country Homes Supply had an opportunity to raise the price substantially. It did not. Instead, the store took names for a waiting list for the next shipment, holding the prices as advertised.
Some of the less commendable things we heard from callers:
•Major retailers suddenly selling shovels for $35, much higher than the price of less than $20 before the snow.
•Unsolicited offers to remove snow by individuals who want payment upfront. That is fine, but once they get the money, they are gone.
•The price of ice melt almost doubling overnight.
•Tow truck operators charging double or triple their presnow rates.
Our economy is based on the rules of supply and demand, so of course a snow shovel will be more costly in winter than in July. But when does a price increase become price gouging and not simple capitalism? Good question.
Here is when something moves from being a smart business decision to taking advantage of a situation or emergency: when the item is a necessity and circumstances make the need for the item critical.
So prior to a hurricane, if the price of plywood jumps 200 percent, that would be gouging if the plywood is in very short supply and there are no other choices for the buyer. Is this legal? I’m not sure, but when asked about the ethics of such activity, I have a very clear response. Raising prices by more than 50 percent to take advantage of a disaster or nature-caused shortage is not ethical.
As a business owner, ask yourself this: If I do this now, will these customers come back? If the answer is no or maybe not, you need to rethink your actions.
Challenging times bring out the best and worst in people. Just as businesses should not take advantage of the situation to enrich themselves at the expense of their customers, consumers should not take advantage of business owners trying their best to stay open and serve people.
One of my employees lives in a neighborhood with a small, family-run convenience store. She and her husband wandered over in the knee-deep snow to buy a snow shovel. Of course the store was sold out. So the couple asked the owner, whom they know quite well, if they could borrow his personal shovel to get their car out. He replied he could have, but he was out clearing the sidewalk when a customer came in. He set the shovel in the snow and went into the store. When he came back out, someone had stolen the shovel.
The weather also makes some people cranky and impatient. The BBB already is receiving a slew of complaints about property managers who do not remove snow, business owners who choose not to shovel the walks, mail that does not get delivered, backed-up garbage pickup, medication that arrives late at area pharmacies, and plows that seem to never make it to your street.
To transform your ordeal into an adventure, try to anticipate your needs well in advance, realize that most people are doing the best they can, and remain patient, realizing that it takes five times as long to do almost everything as normal. See if you can enjoy something about the situation – even just cracking jokes about it on Facebook, romping in the fresh powder or putting on your headlamp in the power outage to play Scrabble.
If you are feeling frustrated with the service you’re getting from a business or agency, the best thing to do is go right to the source and talk to the person who is letting you down. Make sure your request is reasonable. If you want to complain to the garbage pickup folks because they will not drive down the alley and get stuck, you just might want to rethink that complaint.
And there is always someone who has it worse than you. On Christmas Day, one of the BBB employees saw a man pushing a child in a wheelchair across the Monroe Street Bridge, surrounded by cars.
Catholic Charities has been flooded by calls from low-income, disabled seniors who are in dire need of snow shoveling services. (To volunteer, call 509-328-8400.)
Bear in mind that when the snow melts, we will recall those who helped us make this memorable winter an adventure and those who tried to make it an ordeal.
I know which group I’d rather belong to.