BBB ST.LOUIS REVIEW IN ALL HONESTY

Michelle Cory is the president and CEO of the
St.Louis better business bureau did you know
that this BBB has provided 7.7 million
instances of service to the public so
far in 2016 you probably know that BBB
promotes ethics in the marketplace but
do you know how we do it
here's this a glimpse of what we do for
our community each and every day our
consumer services team provides
information to help individuals make
wise giving and buying decisions and if
something goes wrong during the
marketplace transaction these are the
people that are here to help as
advertising review director I continue
the work which the st.louis BBB was founded to do
nearly 100 years ago I monitor fast they
couldn't mislead our disease we promote
the importance of ethical advertising so
that consumers have the confidence they
need when making their buying decision
so if you don't want to hear from me
take a look at your print broadcast and
digital eggs to be sure they're accurate
and not misleading today the BBB in St.Louis is much
more than monitoring ads we've developed
and provide reports on businesses a
Business Review includes detailed
information about a business how it
results customer complaints its letter
grade and industry buying tip we do this
so that consumers can decide if the
company is worthy of their trust
my job is to make sure that our BBB
business reviews are up-to-date accurate
and helpful so far this year consumers
have accessed our business reviews
nearly 2 million times we answer calls
emails and chat online with people every
day who need our help
we provide them with BBB charity and
business reviews educate them about
scams and in take their complaints when
someone posts a customer review we reach
out to the business roots position we're
happy to report that 2/3 of reviews we
receive are positive reviews
most of the time marketplace disputes
are due to misunderstandings if a
complaint gets complicated we facilitate
conversations between the business and
consumer through mediation and if needed
we provide arbitration we help both
parties reach a positive outcome and so
far this year we've resolved 85% of the
14,000 complaints we've received my job
well it's an interesting one it's to
investigate and to expose
bad actors those who refuse to make a
good-faith effort to help their
customers those who knowingly are taking
unfair advantage of consumers those who
damaged an industry's reputation we do
this through BBB news warnings by
sharing this information we help prevent
others from falling victim to fraudulent
business practices the work in our
business relations department helps
trustworthy businesses in our service
area businesses running BBB
accreditation know that's supporting BB
B's mission is good for business and
good for the community this is why when
our business relations staff discusses
benefits and the principles for which we
stand with prospective accredited
businesses they do it with pride a
record number 7700 businesses in our 92
County service area have now earned BBB
accreditation I speak with businesses
spreading the word about the value of
BBB accreditation my job is to educate
accredited businesses about the many
services provided through accreditation
including our request a quote program
designed to connect consumers with
accredited businesses I make sure
they're receiving the torch-lite
magazine and electronic newsletters or
signed up for any upcoming webinars with
any service industry timely and
effective communications are essential
meet our team they are the ones who help
make this happen hi I'm Shelly I work
with the news media to cover our
consumer stories and with advertising
media to reach the right audience at the
right time and with the right messages
I'm Craig my job is to make sure that we
have the technologies needed along with
carefully analyzed data to efficiently
reach the millions of BBB service users
I'm Maggie as education outreach
coordinator I focus on proactive
education I enroll area schools into our
ethics education program specifically
designed for students I teach senior
groups on how to avoid scams and how to
utilize BBBS online scam tracker I
encourage the community to use BBBS free
services available to them services made
possible through the support of our
accredited businesses I help people
that's what I do
so there's your glimpse into the work
that we do for our region every day
to advance marketplace trust