While technology has helped bring many advances to the business world, it has also allowed unscrupulous operators to flourish as well, the Better Business Bureau of Southern Alberta and East Kootenay told an Olds and District Chamber of Commerce luncheon crowd last week.
Sandra Crozier-McKee, president of the BBB, told the group that while the organization is monitoring a number of popular scams, consumers doing their research can oftentimes protect themselves from being taken in.
Crozier-McKee said the BBB asks that people who have had an issue with a particular business put their complaint in writing. She said the act of writing it out often helps the individuals pinpoint what the true concern is.
“The act of writing out the complaint kind of settles them down and helps them to identify the real issues that they may have had,” she said.
With the advancement of the Internet, the BBB has seen an increase in its workload.
“The amount of contact that we have now increases monthly. We have people contacting us by phone, but also by e-mail, by coming to our (website) and every month that traffic … increases significantly,” she said.
She also said it's important for consumers to recognize businesses that provide quality service and excellent products.
“Remember to recognize the business that does a good job. You're providing a service to people by recognizing businesses,” she said.
Accreditation is an important tool because it shows the business is ethical, that they believe in a set of values, that it's a business that can be trusted. It also sends the message that the business takes its reputation seriously and wants to be in the community long-term.
“The other thing that the accredited business does – or those that seek accreditation and achieve it – is that they are helping the community that they're in as well because the BBB is a non-profit organization; we're not government funded, and so it's the accredited businesses that started our organization … that allow us to get that information out to consumers,” she said, noting that there are 4,000 accredited businesses in southern Alberta and the East Kootenay.
Crozier-McKee said while it encourages businesses to strive for BBB accreditation, the organization takes all complaints of poor business practices seriously and investigates all of them – whether the businesses are BBB accredited or not.
