Rant: The BBB
So for those of you that know anything about the BBB, let me explain why I think their whole system is a scam.
Apparently a ‘potential’ customer of mine called into their hotline to see if I, or my business, was a BBB member. I’m obviously not, and never will be (mark my words) for a number of reasons. But none the less, the representative that called me got me right to walking through their membership process, sold their whole pathetic story, “we’re 92 years old, we only represent legitimate businesses, we help customers resolve complaints with members, we provide free litigation services to save you from wasting money on a attorney” (mind you I’m planning on pursuing the legal profession). Then at the end, the representative couldn’t pull the deal together, not to mention didn’t know how to tele-sale worth a damn. I’m not claiming to be an expert, but she definitely needed to work on her obvious phone anxiety.
I now refuse to become a member, pay them a penny, or waste any more time on the phone with them because outside of the mentioned branding, resolution, and litigation services mentioned, the BBB really doesn’t do a damn. I finally told the lady I didn’t want the service and she kept pushing the fact I was losing a potential customer and couldn’t find out who that customer was until I paid their membership ‘dues’.
I don’t really care about the potential lead/customer/whatever, but I am insulted that they tried to extort me to become a member in order to get in contact with this lead.
To give you a better idea why I hate the BBB, here’s kind of a funny story. I used to work for this ISP who was an active BBB member. Well every year each BBB chapter has their own little, self-nominated ethics awards - yes you read that correctly, self-nominated ethics award. This particular company actually won the award for being ethical. Now I had worked for this company for every a year, found their business practices pathetic, their pricing strategies unethical, and the way they treated their employees scrupulous. This employeer ended up winning the ill-earned award even with these issues and parades the award around.
I brought this to the attention of the BBB representative that called me, and stated that I did not want this crap image (that they pass of as ‘required for business success’) touching my company. Her only resolution to this complaint was that I should have filed a complaint with the BBB regarding the company, and then I responded, ‘are past employees allowed to file complaints?’. Here convuluted response was ‘only if they were a customer’. So what’s the point of them giving out the award cause they clearly have no wholesome way of monitoring a companies ethics because all they really care about is direct customer complaints. That’s why I’m suggesting a name change for the award, something along the lines of ‘The BBB Ethical-Customer-Image Self-Nominated Award’.
I should add that the mentioned company/employeer is trying to ’screw’ me on a number of different levels, but that’s a story for another rainy day.
None the less, on to a better subject. Today was a fairly lazy day. I did the normal work till 2am and get up at 10am routine last night, and then went to Starbucks this morning, screwed around a bit then went to Lunch, made some calls, and hit ASU’s Science Library to get some work done with a partner from RuckusWorks. I also stopped by Arizona Golf Works on University in Tempe, and I must admit they were ungodly helpful - I will definitely be a repeat customer. It wasn’t that bad of a day at all and fairly stimulating and relaxing. I’m excited about going golfing soon.
I’m also happy to report that hopefully around the 1st of March, we’ll be moving our equipment from Tucson, AZ to Phoenix, AZ within TimeWarner’s datacenter in downtown Phoenix. We’re moving from an open relay rack, to a secured cabinet, which a lot better pricing on power, bandwidth, and so much more. We’re also bringing in a PRI which I’m totally excited about… More on that later.
Anyways - Have a great weekend.
“People are definitely a company’s greatest asset. It doesn’t make any difference whether the product is cars or cosmetics. A company is only as good as the people it keeps.” - Mary Kay Ash