BBB staff and Jeff Katz

0:00Jeff Katz for the BBB Better Business Bureau Serving Central Virginia. Another episode of BBB sharing. Generally speaking, we sit down, we chat with accredited businesses and I happen to be the owner of an accredited business. I know how important the Better Business Bureau Serving Central Virginia is. I know the wonderful work that's done by the team here at the BBB. And we thought for a little chat here, we would actually talk with some of the people doing that incredible work. Why the Better Business Bureau is important to them, what they get from working at the BBB, what they're able to offer to accredited businesses, why businesses would want to be accredited. And for those businesses that maybe have fallen away, said, you know, I'm not sure if I'm getting the value for it. Why they ought to think about coming back. Debbie and Crystal and Jen are joining me. They are the ones despite what Barry Moore may believe. They are the ones that keep the Better Business Bureau Serving Central Virginia working properly

1:04up to 100%. And I'm going to leave it up to you, ladies. You know what, we could do it in alphabetical order. So nobody feels put upon, unless your name is Crystal. In which case, yeah, you're going to be put upon, aren't you, Crystal? Now take it. All right. So first of all, welcome, ladies. I'm thrilled to have you here. And I'm looking forward to chatting a little bit. Crystal, tell us a little bit about yourself. You're rolled here at the Better Business Bureau Serving Central Virginia. Sure. My name is Crystal Securdium, the general manager here at the BBB in Central Virginia. And I've been here about 18 years with these ladies. 18 years. All right. So you're a newcomer and it may or may not work out is what you're saying. Yeah. All right. I would say at this point, Crystal, you are committed to the BBB. I am. Yes. All right. Why? I think for what we stand for, how we kind of, we hold companies of different standards and I think other folks do. Yeah. And for what we do with the community, the conversations we have through tonight sparked

2:05by BBB and all things here in Central Virginia. All right. Let's talk a little bit about the conversations. Ignite sparked by BBB is an incredible program. I'm absolutely blessed to have participated in so many of those. I just think they're so valuable. Remind everybody if they don't know. What is that? What is the Ignite program? Yeah. Yeah. So what we'll do here with the Ignite program, we do it a little different than the outfits on the West Coast. We hold more conversations here at our office. Some of them can relate to just how to make your company better through marketing initiatives, our new offerings in the area. And then other ones are going to be more, you know, charity driven, where we're talking about, you know, sober October, we're talking about, you know, food banks or food insecurity, things like that. All right. Now I said I was going to do it in alphabetical order. So Debbie, front end center, please. Yes. My name is Debbie Grant. I've been here 27 years.

3:05Wow. Wow. Another newcomer. Holy. Holy. So I just sales and retention. Right. Yes. I always say why not become accredited with the Better Business Bureau? That is my questions to companies that's out there. Why not? Being accredited with the Better Business Bureau does give consumers the opportunity to trust someone because that's what we built on, honesty, trust and integrity. So if you want, you know, customers or consumers to really trust who they do in business wealth because there's so much out there that's, game goes on and you're not looking and then once it's too late, you come to us to see if that company is accredited. So why not be accredited for somebody, you know, a consumer can trust. Yeah. What a great perspective on that. Why not be accredited? What would keep anybody from seeking accreditation? Is it, do you think it's, it's a cost factor?

4:06Do you think it's, they're thinking about ROI? Am I going to get anything back? Is that, that would be the only reason I would think. Yeah, some, some think is cost factor, something it's not going to get anything out of it, but I think we do offer a lot, even for the cost factor that we do charge, you know. You come in, you want a little bit of advertisement, but you want to spend maybe a lot of money for other advertisement. Yeah. When Albus is really not that expensive, you'd really look at it and really, oh, I'd stop it. Say what? I look at the minimal investment for BBB accreditation. I look at the return on that investment. It's an incredible return. And as you say, why would a business not want to be accredited? If I'm a consumer and I'm thinking about a business and I know that business has decided, oh, no, I don't want to go through that process, well, now I start to wonder, why don't you want to go through that process? Or are you're clearly not up to snuff? That would be my general assessment.

5:07I kind of grew up with a dad that always said, we look for that BBB designation before we talk to anybody. Jen? Yeah. DCJ. I'm sorry. I've delayed this as long as humanly possible, Jen, but tell us a little bit about yourself. So my name's Jen and I have been with the BBB for over 20 years. Wow. Yes, you are sitting in a room with a lot of experience. Yes, indeed. Yes, indeed. So I've worked in our operations department with all the fun stuff we do, complaints, customer reviews, scam tracker, all that good stuff, which in the long run does help our accredited businesses stand out above the ones that are not up to par. So like Debbie said, she doesn't understand why companies wouldn't become accredited, well, sometimes they're not eligible to become accredited. And one of the things that we push for all of our accredited businesses, because they

6:08are also consumers, is startwithbbb.org. Before you purchase, before you do anything, go to BBB.org and see what kind of history we have for this company. Look at the reviews, look at the complaints. It's not necessarily that a company has a complaint, but how they've responded to it. So you want to just look at all that information and that as an accredited business makes a huge difference if you are responding to those complaints, consumers can see that and how you are with them. You mentioned some businesses are not eligible, and this is one of those issues that some people might not fully understand. We talk about a BBB accredited business. We're not talking about a business who is a member of the better business bureau, like they might be a member of the Chamber of Commerce, where the entire process is, here's the fee. Thank you very much. Here's your membership card. There's a lot more that goes into becoming in a accredited business with the BBB, correct? Absolutely. Yeah. So you have to meet our standards and you have to agree to uphold our standards.

7:11So answering complaints, being properly licensed, making sure that you embody integrity within your company, advertising honestly, there's 36 point checklists that we go through when we're at an application for an accredited business, which is again, why we tell consumers they can trust in a accredited business because they've gone through that vetting process with us. That's exactly right. That's exactly why you can trust in a accredited business. For those that are listening to this, my friends and they're thinking, okay, I do want to learn more about the BBB either because I have a business and I'd like to become accredited or because I'm a consumer and I would like to have some confidence in my businesses. What's the one website or two website stopping place that I need to go? I would say BBB.org for sure. Okay. You can also contact us at 804-648-0030 and we can get you to the right person. All right. So BBB.org, I got what was that phone number again? 804-648-0030. All right. Well, ladies, I appreciate you being here.

8:15Crystal, Debbie and Jen from the Better Business Bureau serving Central Virginia. Another great episode of BBB sharing. I am an accredited business owner. I'm very, very proud of that. I believe wholeheartedly in the Better Business Bureau. Jeff Katz, BBB sharing.