BBB Under Scrutiny

Link: http://www.bbbroundup.com

I’ve been asked more than once why I’m doing bbbroundup. My stock answer is that “I don’t have a dog in this fight”—my own business is not on the LA BBB’s radar, nor likely to show up there soon. (I run a small consulting firm in the greater Los Angeles area with a handful of loyal clients who know they can come to me at any time and I will resolve any issue that might come up.) All of this is true.

There’s more to it than that though. My entire life has been spent rooting for the underdog, the little guy, those who dare to be different…the antithesis of Corporate America with a capital C.

Here we are in a time of grave economic crisis, and I’m once again I’m rooting for the little guy as manifested in two groups of citizens. For all those who are recently retired, or had planned to retire around now, I hope your stock portfolios go up. And for the small business I wish nothing but the best. It’s the small business who has the deck stacked against them in the best of time and who now has hind tit as the federal bailout trough. You can count the dollars small business will be getting from the feds as zero. Small business is simultaneously being battered by tighter credit, less consumer demand, increased taxes—all things that hit the small business much harder and much quicker than their big business counterpart.

And then along comes the LA BBB in one of the hardest hit regions economically in the United States and kicks small business when they’re already down through unprincipled tactics and motives, under the guise of protecting the consumer when in many instances they are actually misleading them.

Hypocrisy and violence are my only pet peeves (outside of people who wait for the light to turn green before putting on their turn signals) and I will state for the record that I’ve neither heard about nor witnessed any instance of the BBB resorting to violence. Hypocrisy is another matter.

In a time when corporate America is outsourcing help desks and designing ever more circuitous automated call centers to avoid the customer in seek of answers, the small business is more likely to have actual humans answer the phone…real humans who place a high premium on satisfying customers. The average small business owner puts in an enormous amount of hours and the one thing he doesn’t have time for is the BBB meddling in his customer satisfaction process. Especially, if he has chosen not to be a BBB member. The small business owner is much more inclined to take the direct approach in resolving issues with customers than funneling them through a middleman like the BBB. For the BBB to insert themselves in a business’ process and practice without invitation is not right. Let’s face it, 99% of American businesses have chosen NOT to be BBB members, so why should anything the BBB says be relevant?

Having said all that, I also believe it is not too late for the BBB to resurrect themselves. They’ve got a 99% upside, why not re-invent themselves as an organization offering something of value, rather than a wooden plaque? At the end of this ten part series, I will come up with both conclusions and suggestions on how the BBB could reach their potential, serve both the consumer and business sectors more efficiently and effectively, and overcome the inequities and temptations that exist in the current system.