Better Business Bureau adds customer reviews on its website

Consumers are getting another online forum to express how much they love or loathe local businesses.

The Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota now allows consumers to post reviews, positive or negative, in addition to complaints at thefirstbbb.org.

"When we asked consumers and businesses what else they wanted from our BBB, time and again we heard customer reviews," said Dana Badgerow, president and CEO of the BBB of Minnesota and North Dakota.

All reviews are verified, but they will not affect the company's rating, as formal unanswered complaints do.

Customers writing a negative review are encouraged to file a formal complaint first, assuming they are seeking resolution. They cannot file a complaint and write a review too, said Dan Hendrickson, communications coordinator at the BBB. "Another customer review on top of a complaint would be excessive," he said.

If a consumer wishes to put a negative review online and decides later to file a complaint, a consumer may do so, but the negative review will then be taken down from the site.

Hendrickson suggests that consumers file a complaint first. If they "let the company have it" in a review and then file a formal complaint with the BBB, "It might hinder the path to a resolution," he said.

Since 2012, the Better Business Bureau of Minnesota and North Dakota has allowed consumers to read on its website the formal complaints against a company. However, that does not include complaints that the bureau gets by mail or fax, about 5 percent of the total.

Consumers should not only check the number of complaints against a company but also read the complaints, Krughoff suggests, noting the BBB of Minnesota and North Dakota will sometimes rate a company highly even if it has a large number of complaints. A company improves its BBB rating by answering complaints. "Being unresponsive hurts a business' rating but I've seen companies with 100 answered complaints that still have an A+ rating," he said.

Krishna Natarajan of St. Paul agrees. He recently looked at a national garage door company with 157 complaints nationwide, that had "no rating" on the BBB site. He's said it's important to read the reviews and complaints because "the rating by itself can be misleading."

The BBB's rating is part of a complicated formula, Hendrickson said. Sixteen factors go into it, including length of time in business, the seriousness of the complaints and the type and size of company. A list of factors can be found at tinyurl.com/px3wxka.

Part of the reason for a large number of complaints may have to do with the size of the business. Twin Cities Consumers' Checkbook takes that into account by asking the number of full-time employees each business has and factoring that into the number of complaints. The BBB is careful to note that it compiles complaints for businesses that are locally based but with a national retail system. Richfield-based Best Buy, for example, has nearly 9,000 complaints on file with the BBB of Minnesota and North Dakota, but it still has an A rating because of the volume of its nationwide business.

Krughoff cautions that small samples of reviews, positive or negative, may not be that helpful. Checkbook prefers a minimum of 10 reviews on a company to get a more accurate sampling. Its reviewers, mostly subscribers to Checkbook and Consumer Reports, have contributed 10,000 reviews in the Twin Cities' auto repair section alone.

The BBB reviews come at a time when negative posts have been under siege. Yelp and Angie's List have long been accused of boosting reviews of businesses that advertise on its site. Both firms deny the practice. A San Francisco court recently determined there is nothing wrong with that if they do. The Financial Services Roundtable, a financial industry lobbying group led by former Gov. Tim Pawlenty, tried to keep consumer complaints about banks off a federal website until several large banks asked it to stop.

Krughoff said that even while the BBB's new system has some limitations, he is glad the reviews have been added. "Anyone putting out more information for the consumer is doing a good thing," he said.