Standards for ethical behavior essential to ensure transactions are equitable
Honesty and ethics. Pretty straightforward concepts that are missing in so many places these days.
Not at the BBB, not for almost 100 years. What we do every day involves holding businesses and their customers to standards. Are we perfect? Not by a long shot, but a couple of recent events have made me and my staff stand just a little taller in the marketplace.
The BBB is one odd duck when it comes to a business model. We deliver millions of business ratings free nationwide each year to anyone who looks up a business review at bbb.org. We offer ratings both for businesses accredited by the BBB and those that never in their wildest dreams could achieve that honor.
We handle hundreds of thousands of complaints each year, more than 70 percent of them against businesses that do not pay an accreditation fee because they do not meet our eight standards for ethical business behavior.
We have many businesses that apply for accreditation and fail to pass our screening process, and we send their money back. Now how smart is that? We are funded by the good, honest and ethical businesses that pay for us to spend the majority of our time taking care of scam companies, bad businesses and outrageous customers, and none of that activity may ever directly affect the good businesses. Weird.
Last week, three companies turned down for BBB accreditation appealed to our Board of Directors’ Standards Committee. Our process ensures that the buck stops with the board representing the business community — a sort of jury of peers. The committee is the group of business leaders which holds existing BBB accredited businesses to the standards and hears appeals when accreditation is denied or revoked.
Three hearings in one day is not business as usual, but with the increased use of BBB ratings (A through F) by consumers, more and more companies are seeing the value of the torch seal. But the money accredited businesses pay us does not change the standards by which we measure them.
One company was turned down due to one owner’s link to a real problem company. In our system, a bad record follows the person, to prevent a company from simply changing its name to get away from the F grade it earned.
The other two companies were declined because of the nature of their business and their failure to clear up website claims and sales pitches we know they cannot deliver on. In these instances, they can’t do what they claim and didn’t demonstrate that they could.
The process worked. BBB staff takes accreditation issues very seriously, because if any company can hold that seal out to potential customers, it loses its value. Buyers trust the BBB torch, and we are vigilant in making sure they can rely on it. The Standards Committee upheld the staff action in all three cases.
Additional scenarios came up recently in my dealings with a couple of non-accredited businesses in Spokane. Sometimes the reason a company does not hold the torch seal is subtle. In one case, I had a principal of a qualified company tell me he did not think they could live up to the BBB standards for accreditation, and therefore had not applied. I appreciated his candor. The standards are not easy to achieve, and I know that.
In another case the company felt it had been dealt a bad hand in a business situation, and while that may have been the case, the shoe was on the other foot. In a situation a few years ago they got their toes stepped on, and in turn dealt the BBB a bad hand. What goes around comes around, they say, and every once in a while we can observe this in action. Operating ethically, honestly and in the best fashion for all concerned will never stop serving us well.
Standards are not always popular, but when everyone knows the rules it makes the game a whole lot fairer, and frankly more fun.
To learn about the BBB’s standards for ethical business behavior, which include advertising honestly, honoring promises and safeguarding customer privacy, visit our website at www.bbb.org.