 Matters. You know that. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech. This is Thursday. And there are three magic words. Okay, the first magic word is Rosanne Freitas. It's actually hyphenated. Second is Lisa Nakao. It's hyphenated, too. The third one is not hyphenated. It's restaurants. Okay, according to the BBB, BBB.org. The Business Bureau of what? The Northwest and Pacific. All right, good for you guys. I practiced law for a long time, and 50 years or something. And we always talked about the BBB because it was an option that we could tell our clients. They didn't like the way we're treated as consumers. They go to the BBB. The problem is it's hard. The BBB is inundated with complaints. How much can you do? Suppose I give you a really bad one. I mean, there was a piece of glass in my omelet. What do you do? Refer them to council. Well, actually what we do is we ask them to go online and file their complaint first. So everything has to be in writing. So once that complaint enters into our system, then we send the complaint to the business itself. So now the business has that opportunity to respond. Yeah, do they? Yes. They do. And most businesses, especially that value that that customer will respond. So it begins that dialogue. So now it's it's a back and forth. So the idea is to hopefully come up with that resolution without having to go to litigation. Yeah. It's not fun for anybody to end up in litigation. So it would be nice if we're able to resolve that. If we get to that point that after the communication, they aren't able to resolve it. We do actually have options for mediation or arbitration that they cannot take. They don't agree to that. Of course. They don't agree no so. Correct. Yeah. But it's it's a it's a really good process because most of your maybe with the exception of the glass in the omelet, most of your issues are really communication issues. So it's really having that conversation start that they can actually resolve the issues. Okay, you guys had an article in PBN what three weeks ago, a month ago, something like that. Yeah, a couple weeks back. A couple weeks back. And that was that really caught my eye because you were out there reporting on what you have learned what you were doing on restaurants. So can you summarize it for me, Lisa? What was the article about? Okay, so it was just about what are the industries that people are asking about expressing concerns about. And so, typically, for BBV, we have construction industry, real estate industry, things that are high ticket items. But it was noticed that restaurant was in that mix number four in number four number four communications you'd received. The complaints increase, it was number 17, but it was over 8000 inquiries. And the complaints is less than 50. And so just just to give it perspective. So people are really asking about the industry, but that was noticed. Give me an example of a question in inquiry. Like what? You guys serve glass in your omelets? No, people just want to know whether they can trust that restaurant, especially for like catering situation. Should I trust the restaurant? Right, because you're taking care of a group of people. And do you have ratings on your website, BBV.org, where you say X restaurant is a rating of five, or four, or three, or whatever? Like what's the state health department, right? ABC, do you have ratings? We do have ratings at the Bitter Business Bureau, and they are letter grades. And those are based on looking at businesses. Do they have the proper licensing to do business in the state that they are registered? Are they meeting all the standards that need to be met? Are there any issues against them? And then of course we do look at the complaints. Complaints won't lower their grades unless you start to really see a strong pattern of glass in an omelet, which is probably not going to happen. However, where we also look. Only one would be enough. Where we do look is, if they do receive a complaint, do they respond? Because that is one of our standards is their response. So if a business ignores the initial complaint, we do reach out again via email. If again they ignore it, we actually reach out via phone call. If they continue to ignore it, that is when it will impact their grade, because part of our standards is that you must respond to the consumer. Now these complaints, do they have to be signed by a known person or can they be whistleblower? We've heard that term recently. Well actually, the type of complaints we can take is from customer of a business. Because every complaint we receive, we do reach out to the business, usually the principal of the business or principal, customer relations person. So if it is not their customer, then they'll tell us. Then we go back to the complainant and ask for proof of the marketplace transaction. Receipts, contract, something that shows that you actually had interaction with this company. So that's the system in place. And most of them do cooperate with you, I guess. Yes. I mean it's silly not to. There's no mileage in denying the BBB. Well they do value, they value that we are talking about trust in the marketplace. So we're trying to do the right things and most definitely your legitimate businesses are most definitely trying to do the right thing. So yeah, they respond to what we send out. Well let's take my case study with the glass and the omelette. Sorry to dwell on that. It's not something very appealing. Okay so I see the glass and the omelette and I say to the waiter, you know, glass and my omelette waiter, and the waiter says it's not a problem. We regularly have glass, you know. We broke some stuff in the kitchen and we're finding this glass. So you know, swallow it or whatever. You know it's an unacceptable answer. Right. So I appeal to the BBB and they say the same thing to you. So do you make a determination then and say this is unacceptable? We can't have restaurants with glass. What do you do? Report to the Department of Health for example. What do you do? What are your steps? Okay so we look at the response from the business and then see if they're addressing the issue, the real issue, and they're making good faith effort. And you know it is our process really depends on the voluntary cooperation from the business as well as the customer. Right. So if the business is unwilling to take that stance then we do, we have to close that case as unresolved at that point. We do also present the options for consumers or complainant if they want to pursue it further. And so that's what we would do. And if it is, if it happens to be a regulated industry, you know regulator might be one of the options. But so that's that's how it's done. Now the leverage here though is that because what we you know that the results and what we receive and the result of it gets published. It does affect the online reputation which is really critical for any businesses now because people are finding businesses online and they do read these. I'm a banker I'm going to read it. Those guys the restaurant comes to me and says they want a loan. I'm going to say you know what's your record with the BBB? I'm going to ask that because that's part of my due diligence. And I suppose anyone else may for example was the thing in PBN speaking of PBN a couple weeks ago where there's a restaurant turnkey for sale, turnkey for sale which means you get it lock stock in barrel. That's a great term. And you get it with the trade name, you get it with the staff presumably, you get it with the inventory and the tables and chairs and cooking, all that stuff. And so the next day after the transaction the guy's running a restaurant is different but everything in the restaurant is the same as it was a day before. Okay if I'm that buyer I'm going to want to talk to you guys. I'm going to want to see everything. I'm going to want to take advantage of your due diligence that you made. Now is your file open to me? Can I come into your office and say excuse me Roseanne I'd like to see your file on the ABC restaurant. I shouldn't say ABC we're in a store by that name. Yeah let's say XYZ restaurant. So our what Lisa mentioned as far as the back and forth all of that is actually online for the public. It will remove names however the actual back and forth between the business and the consumer is there for everybody in the public. No names though. No names. You have the names. Yes that's in another file. Correct. Can I see that file? No that well if if you don't want to be sued you know because there's always a possibility that some some lawyer will will will find a defamation claim. I mean that has to happen and he doesn't agree with your analysis so your process and and he he wants to take a run at you that's gotta happen but so you gotta be careful. Right so you know we we do want to protect the privacy rights of the people and so you know if it is in litigation and if there's a subpoena of course if I was at least last week. Jesus sounds like Congress. We're hoping to avoid all of that. Okay I can see that I can see that for example if I make my complaint although it's it's known to you it's not a whistleblower to you you know I don't really want you to give my name out to the restaurant or or or business I mean may but not without my consent. Yeah oh I'm very interesting. Now what about what about visiting the premises so they say this restaurant has a problem and I mean if it was if it was me doing due diligence I would say well I gotta go look I gotta see you I gotta see the health department sticker in the window I gotta see what it looks like I gotta see where they wear hair nets over the frying pan whatever you know I want I want to see how this place works I want to go be here's the question I want to go be on the complaint we have a show called beyond the line this is beyond the complaint okay so do you do you go beyond the complaint do you visit do you ask questions that go you know outside the four corners of the company. I think on that one we're not going to necessarily go to the business and make sure they're wearing the netting and all that because that would be the health department's issue we are going to look to the health department make sure that they do have the compliance that's needed because that's that's our side of what we do we're making sure that they're doing everything that's required for especially in a regulated industry like that so yes we're going to look to make sure they have a passing score but we don't necessarily have to go in and make sure everybody's wearing a net and things like that. When you go do you go cognito or incognito do you wear a little groucho marks outfit and a slob chat. I actually have never been a secret such hopper but I believe Lisa has done a few of those. Do you go with a slob chat. Oh no I go as I am but so. Look at all these shows on television you know guys with the FBI and he takes his you know his wallet out and shows the FBI and Lisa goes and she takes them all out on her BBB badge. BBB watch out you guys and they jump three feet high right. Now we are about transparency so if we are going to visit we we do go visit and then you know this just disclose who we are why we're there and so Roseanne and also Roseanne meet with different businesses. You talk to them yes you don't just walk around you talk to them yes yeah and you tell them what the situation is and you get a response and you write it down. Well from a complaint standpoint we would there is a direct team that deals with that so that wouldn't be on my end of it but they you know they're going to do the due diligence back and forth but if they've received like especially here in Hawaii where we have that pass fill score the cards the green and the red they're going to have to prove once that has been brought to attention that they have passed. That's a short tweet well it's supposed to be posted anyway. Yeah correct. There was one guy in the paper recently didn't he took it down. He thought that would be smart and they find him for taking it down. It was a substantial find. Correct because it's to protect the consumer and that's why industries like the restaurant industry are regulated so that the actual consumers protected and so the businesses that are doing it right you really want to applaud them because they are following what is is out there and meets the standards. Okay you guys we're going to take a short break and then we're going to come back and we're going to talk about exactly how this works on a macro scale. I'm going to be asking you about what your jurisdiction is in terms of the islands okay and how you how you deal with complaints on other islands and inquiries. I'm going to ask you this big question. People ever call you don't answer now. People ever call you and say it was a great restaurant. How much guys to give them a double plus a don't answer. We'll be right back after the short break. Hi I'm Rusty Kamori host of Beyond the Lines. I was the head coach for the Punahou Boys varsity tennis team for 22 years and we're fortunate to win 22 consecutive state championship. This show is based on my book which is also titled Beyond the Lines and it's about leadership creating a superior culture of excellence achieving and sustaining success and finding greatness. If you're a student, parent, sports or business person and want to improve your life and the lives of people around you tune in and join me on Mondays at 11 a.m. as we go Beyond the Lines on ThinkTec Hawaii. Aloha. Aloha I'm Keisha King host of At the Crossroads where we have conversations that are real and relevant. We have spoken with community leaders from right here locally in Hawaii and all around the world. Won't you join us on ThinkTecHawaii.com or on YouTube on the ThinkTec Hawaii channel. Our conversations are real, relevant and lots of fun. I'll see you at the Crossroads. Aloha. Okay we're back. Okay this is Roseanne Freitas of Lisa and the Cow and we're talking about the bbb.org that is the benefit bureau of the Pacific Northwest of the Northwest and Northwest and Pacific and Pacific. Okay okay so we had a cliffhanger and you and you told me that you had the answer Roseanne. My cliffhanger question was do people ever call you and say what a great restaurant can you give them a star or something because I really had a good time there and I want everybody to know. Does that happen? What we do is we do get reviews so for our our accredited businesses with Better Business Bureau they can go online and leave that company a review and we do recommend they do that because we know especially in the restaurant industry we know that over 60% of people look online to research a restaurant so they can we're not just the complaint people we actually do they can put a review on for our accredited businesses. So a two-sided yelp. We are most definitely about promoting good business but we're also about resolution so it's not just having a complaint but it's actually trying to resolve that complaint. Okay let's make some comparisons you know I shop on Amazon and we do a lot with B&H photo if you haven't heard of them in New York City and there are various other you know internet you know what is Amazon has 40% of the retail in the country I mean amazing okay. And with Amazon you can and I do and don't you look up what people say and you know they have five stars or something and you can see what the stars are saying whether they're you know positive or negative or in the middle and and you'll learn a lot about the the product of the place the service by looking at the comments when people leave but it's numerical. And we'll go a step further eBay right which is all about trust it's making the buyer trust the seller and the seller trust the buyer all that same thing stars you rape things and people in service and cooperation and all everything you know and then you leave a review and then I can go on there and I can either trust or not based on the number of stars it's numerical. Okay now if I go on to BBB first question is these reviews are they anonymous or anonymous or anonymous? Okay so people do and you know submit it on the they give us name and but how we try to make sure that it is from the actual customer of the business that's that's who we see if I have a pizza parlor over here okay and then there's a pizza parlor down the street right nothing I'd like more and to send you a few choice remarks about the pizza parlor down the street and tell you it's junk okay and if I can do that I can have a real effect thanks to the BBB you don't want that though. Thank you for asking that because that is a great question right so Lisa will tell you how it goes through that process so that we make sure that your competitor is not doing that too. Right so when we receive reviews so we we do notify the business owner to let to so that they can review it and then let us know if it is not their customer. So the verification right so first step really is verification that you're human so there's an email verification process then there's a notice to the business to verify your customer if they come back and say this is not my customer then we go back to the reviewer and ask for proof or we and also we have a system in place now somewhat of a filter that detects bot or fake reviews fake reviews right and so fake reviews right so when the score for that is quite high we our staff actually call the reviewer to make sure that review actually came from the actual person. Supposed that when you call the reviewer he has a heavy Russian accent and the number has an area code for Moscow I'm like kidding I'm just okay. I think it's their own program. So okay so so you have all these reviewers that they put stars in they put metrics that say you know there's a five star four star three star kind of thing do they do that and if they do do that do you aggregate those numbers and say well restaurant XYZ has a composite you know rating of the average of four five stars you do that can I find as I could on eBay a composite number or on Amazon a composite number that represents an average of everybody on our website you can so it will show it's a star system and you'll be able to see that and then below that will actually have all the reviews so you can actually read them as well good and bad exactly what happens you know it's always interested me on these Amazon type websites where the guy puts one star in one star and then he goes on for a review that is that is that is merciless he just blows them up why did he put the one star in well because he had to put some stars right this website required him to put in some stars so he puts in one you know it's like can you do that I mean you you have to put a star in or you can say I'm not going to put a star in I'm just going to tell you how bad it is you actually it does require you to put a star but people do make sure that they express that sentiment in their comment which is posted along with the star so you can you can see that and the star rating you see at the top is the average score of all of the star ratings from all of the customer reviews so this is this this whole activity is very important to people because you know there's a lot of uh I don't say substandard in the marketplace for consumers and they should look they should go to your bbb.org and they they should look it up and see what what the public is saying about it we're not talking about arbitration or mediation or litigation we're not talking about bashing them in some public you know place we are merely trying to get a handle on how good or bad they are so we should go there or never go there tell our friends to go there and never go there and and to me that's that's a very important part of what you do you agree is this the way it's working out is the bbb an organization that is primarily addressing you know complaints of violations of law violations of legal duties or is a sort of a graduated thing where you're helping the public understands on a on a you know sort of a graduated scale how good or maybe not so good this particular businesses which one is paramount for you actually for us it's always about promoting trust so whether that is promoting businesses that meet those standards and and do that and do what's right for the consumer or even dealing with the complaints of it I can't say one is more weighted than the other because ultimately it's about the consumer so we most definitely look at it from a perspective is the consumer being protected here and hence why we do have our page you can go and look the businesses that do meet the accreditation standards and that are accredited by the business bureau that tells you right then and there we've really done a very extensive vetting process our number one industry actually to get questions on inquiries about is construction people want to make sure that whoever they're hiring to work on their home has all the licensing that's required they need all the standards they have the reviews so it is our number one industry for inquiries but it's not up there for complaints and I think it's because people do look and do their background and do their due diligence yeah with technology these days and so much on the internet sometimes it's hard to know where to shop it's hard to know what review what review to believe because we know there are fake reviews as we just discussed yeah um and then we know that people are buying online and some of these websites are fake and so people are buying things that they're not getting and they're taking their money so I think nowadays even more with our technology it's really proven how we have to know who to buy from and who we can trust and that ultimately is always going to be the better business bureau mission is about the trust well now you mentioned you you know part of a multi-state you know better business bureau organization and we've also been talking about the internet another case study if you will yesterday I I got on the phone with one of our suppliers here an internet supplier and a service supplier rather than a hard good supplier and they were they were bad they were really verbal awful I'm not going to mention their name because we don't have the time but they were you know who knows where they are I know they're not here in Honolulu they're on the internet they could be anywhere in the country or out the country who knows if I make a complaint if I decide I was thinking about it that I want to complain everywhere everywhere in the world I want to I want to hurt these guys for having wasted my time and you know give me a bad experience could I go to you I don't know where they are they could be in Chicago, Pittsburgh, Miami, anywhere so that's what we would get from the from when you would file that complaint we'd obviously find the name of the business and then figure out where that business is located and from there start that dialogue yeah okay suppose they were in Florida that's not in your district what do you tell me go somewhere else no the BBB system as a whole we work seamlessly together and so as long as the business is in Mexico Canada or US we can handle the complaints the same exact way and the advantage of this is we have resources with local knowledge right in each office so maybe it turns out that it seems like the company's in Florida it turned out that was just a UBS address but they're really in I don't know Alaska or something and so we we do have the resources to really look at the connections yes and we can call another BBB right we work together and so we we can look at each other's data to make that determination to help you okay well I mean traditionally a BBB must be a hundred years old anyway it's 1912 1912 how close am I yeah more than a hundred years old uh no less than a hundred years by five five six years more more more okay sorry that's okay I majored in you know history so so the question is um you know has it realized its mission of making business better you talked about trust you talked about encouraging good commerce you know it's a it's a quality thing you want to make commerce good incentivize commerce to be good for the members of our community although that gets a little dicey when you're talking about my Florida company for example or my Russian company for example but you know do you feel that you're you're reaching the same mission that you're implementing the same mission that was contemplated has the BBB grown with the nature of the economy size of course is a big deal but the nature of the economy yes I think we have I think if you look back at 1912 it was more just on advertising back then just to make sure people were being truthful and advertising and while that is still part of what we do we've extended that beyond that times have changed I think it's no more your brick and mortar stores as much as your online components so that too has changed how we do our work as well for us it will always be a growing process we will always strive to do more and do better and we will always be learning but I think we're most definitely still here still strong and probably now more than ever very relevant to the commerce industry well talking to you I feel that way actually one last question before they chop us off the air here okay suppose hypothetically you get a complaint from individual a about a given business maybe an online business and next day you get one from b and then c and then all through the alphabet and then the next happen and then you realize just by a little due diligence that this is a scam it's this guy whoever it is is operating in not only illegal but criminal fashion he's scamming the public now it would seem to me that the attorney general of the state would be interested in that because he doesn't know he doesn't know unless we tell him but it seems that you would be a lightning rod perhaps more than any other organization you know either governmental or you know or private business or non-profit business and you are a non-profit yeah yes I know that because of the ORG yes we are but now you have this information that would be very interesting to the attorney general where he could go and you know make the ball and run with it and see if you could shut these guys down this has happened is this on your radar is this part of your system yes it is our investigative team actually works with attorney generals fpc also depending on the case what it is the size of the concern where it's happening and so we are on a regular basis when there's a concern that sizeable concern maybe it's the number of complaints pattern or because of the unclarity of the business and they're not willing to disclose anything whatever the case may be we put the information together um share that information with the appropriate regulator so they can take a deeper look at it to take action just as I predicted with being thrown off the air Lisa Lisa Degal from San Fradis thank you so much it's been a trip thanks today that's been great bbb.org yeah thank you thank you thank you