The Better Business Bureau brand these days can call to mind a bygone era, when customers knew the name of their local pharmacist and Andy Griffith was the sheriff of Mayberry on the top-rated prime-time television show.
Michael Drummond, who took over as CEO of Metairie-based BBB of Greater New Orleans Area in July, reckons there is still a need for a watchdog that evaluates local businesses based on their customers’ ratings, even in the era of Yelp and myriad online review outlets.
The organization grew out of the false advertising scandals of the early 20th century and the movement to raise ethics and standards for businesses, especially food and medicines. The founding of the BBB in Boston in 1912 followed a landmark case to reduce harmful stimulants from Coca-Cola. The company’s heir, Samuel Dobbs, got religion and then led the effort to establish the watchdog group.
Over a century later, the challenges in a cyber-driven world are different. The core of what the BBB does is still its rating system, whereby businesses get graded A+ to F based on 17 factors, including incident reports. A Yale University study found that 70% of American consumers still say they are more likely to use a business that displays a BBB seal.
Drummond ran the BBB Central Florida in Orlando for a decade before moving to Louisiana. In this week’s Talking Business, he discusses the differences between Orlando and New Orleans and how the BBB had to up its digital game and offer additional services to keep 21st-century consumers interested.
The interview has been edited for length and clarity.
You came to us here in the greater New Orleans area from Orlando a few months ago. What are your impressions so far about how the two metro areas business communities compare?
The main difference is that Orlando is a much newer city compared to New Orleans. Without The Mouse, it would just be swampland with a military base. Disney changed everything there in the ’70s, and now you’ve got a metro area with over 2.5 million and more than 8 million in central Florida. The New Orleans and southeast Louisiana area we’re covering goes back hundreds of years, and many businesses have very deep roots.
What are your priorities for the BBB in the New Orleans area?
The top priority is to grow the membership. In Orlando, we grew it from about 2,000 businesses to over 6,000. We have a similar starting point here. So, it’s about getting out and meeting business groups, trade gatherings like plumbers, and explaining to them the benefits of being part of a standards community.
The organization has changed a lot since you joined it over a decade ago, especially after some controversy about the ratings system and how it might favor businesses that become dues-paying members. What have been the biggest changes?
The biggest change has been technology and the way we communicate. For example, one of our most popular features has been Scam Tracker since we introduced it (in 2015) and updated it a couple years ago. That now gets millions of monthly page views and last year had 65,000 scam reports. It is supported by some of our biggest members, including Amazon and Capital One.
What kinds of scams has it helped combat?
Well, phishing scams in general, and last year, there was a surge in process server scams. That’s where scammers call people with claims about some kind of phony legal issue they have so they can obtain personal information and data.
What other services does BBB do to differentiate itself from other watchdogs and business reviewers?
The mediation and arbitration services for our accredited businesses are unique to the organization. These are dispute resolutions between consumers and businesses. Typically, we might have a retired judge who by mutual agreement will hear both sides of a dispute and then try to come to a negotiated settlement or, if they agree beforehand, adjudicate a binding resolution.