Better Business Bureau keeps eye on consumer complaints

Wednesday, April 9, 2014
Answering a question from Nancy Michael (left) of First National Bank, Tim Maniscalo, president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau of Central Indiana, elaborates on points he stressed during his Greencastle Chamber of Chamber quarterly luncheon remarks as Commerce Executive Director Tammy Johnson listens following the Tuesday program at Putnam Inn.

Simple, time-honored business logic has long dictated "the customer is always right."

And that's correct -- but only to a point -- the president and CEO of the Better Business Bureau (BBB) of Central Indiana assured members of the Greater Greencastle Chamber of Commerce Tuesday afternoon at their quarterly luncheon at the Putnam Inn.

That's because, as another old adage suggests, there are two sides to every story. And the Better Business Bureau wants to hear both of them -- especially when it comes to complaints and those complained against.

"That the customer is always right is not always the case," guest speaker Tim Maniscalo said Tuesday. "Sometimes the business is right."

Maniscalo pointed to the BBB's storied history of complaint handling.

"We have a long, robust system," he said of the organization that began in central Indiana in 1916. "And we've got that practice down, we've been doing it for over 100 years."

Being good listeners is integral to resolving such issues, he noted.

"One of the great things is, we will take that complaint and bring the two parties together," Maniscalo said.

"And even if the consumer doesn't win, he's not going to use this (raising his cell phone) and will probably remain a customer."

Allowing both sides to get a fair hearing and having someone listen to their complaint within a 30-day period can go a long way to mending fences for customer and business owner, Maniscalo said.

If the issue is serious enough or hotly debated, the BBB also can bring in a third-party arbiter to help resolve it.

Through the Better Business Bureau and its www.bbb.org website or 866-indybbb telephone number, the goal is to provide consumers -- free of charge -- with information about its more than 3,300 accredited businesses in central Indiana.

More than 900,000 searches were made on that website last year as consumers searched for accredited businesses to put on a new roof or dig a foundation.

"We try to create an ethical business climate out there for consumers," Maniscalo said, noting that the BBB was begun in "an effort to promote god business practices."

Thus all accredited BBB businesses must meet a set of standards based upon such aspects as a history of business operations, a financial background, history of complaints against the business and a review of the company's advertising.

The BBB complies a rating system, assigning grades from A+ to F for the performance of those businesses.

"Two things affect those ratings," Maniscalo said, listing a speedy resolution process and deceptive or accepted advertising practices as capable of making major impacts.

The businesses endorsed by the BBB cannot pay for a membership but must earn their accreditation.

And if a business earns accreditation but subsequently falls below a B rating, it cannot continue to be accredited.

"The point of all this," Maniscalo stressed, "is that we have to maintain a standard, and in turn, that means something to the consumer out there."

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