Kodak resigned from the Council of Better Business Bureaus (BBB,) rather than face expulsion for their refusal to respond to complaints lodged by spurned customers.

Kodak was advised it could contest the termination but chose instead to resign its national membership in early March. The photography company allowed its membership in the Buffalo-based branch to lapse about five years ago.

“The presence of a third-party organization between Kodak and our customers is bureaucratic and unproductive,” it added. “In fact, Kodak’s customer service and customer privacy teams concluded that 99 percent of all complaints forwarded by the BBB had already been handled directly with the customer.

That is how it’s supposed to work. Customers contact Kodak, get an unsatisfactory response, and then contact the BBB. Just because you “handled” a situation does not mean you handled it well.

To Kodak’s credit, the upstate New York BBB only received 183 complaints over the past three years, which is notable for a company of Kodak’s size. It also makes Kodak’s refusal to respond to those complaints more puzzling.

We might agree with Kodak’s actions if they made their customer interactions public and transparent. Because Kodak, like most companies, refuses to do so, we rely on the BBB to independently evaluate their customer service. — CAREY GREENBERG-BERGER

Kodak Leaves Better Business Bureau [Forbes] (Thanks to Sheila!)
(Photo: LiveU4)

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