Let’s assume that you have taken a look at our article on Vancouver storage locations and, from it, you have picked out a bunch of possible Vancouver self storage companies to rent from. What can you do in order to guarantee that you make an informed, and hopefully correct decision? Well, there are a wide variety of factors involved; however, one of the most important is that of trust or reliability.
How can one go about determining the reliability of a Vancouver self storage business? There are a number of ways; however, today we will focus on just one: making use of the Better Business Bureau (often shortened to BBB).
The Better Business Bureau
Many of you have probably heard about the Better Business Bureau before. It is a business (even though it refers to itself as a bureau) which specializes in keeping track of information about member businesses. Most importantly, it gives you a reasonably detailed report on customer complaints and resolutions.
There has been debate regarding the Better Business Bureau. Specifically, individuals criticize the BBB for being a business which charges dues (fees) to members businesses which it then rates. We admit that there is always a potential for a conflict of interest in this type of situation. Despite saying this, we still believe that using the BBB is a helpful tool in finding reliable Vancouver self storage.
The BBB and Vancouver Self Storage
Let’s say that you wish to check a variety of Vancouver storage facilities against the BBB online database. Here are the steps you will need to follow.
1. Visit the Canadian Better Business Bureau homepage.
2. On the right side of the page you should see a link labeled Check Out a Business or Charity. Click on this link.
3. If you wish to analyze a specific business:
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- Enter the name it into the Business/Charity Name field
- Click on the Search button.
4. If you wish to find a business from a list:
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- Click on the Type of Business tab
- Enter Vancouver self storage into the Type of Business field.
- Enter Vancouver into the City field
- Select British Columbia from the State/Province field
- Hit the Search button.
- Click on Storage Units – Household & Commercial
- Search through the company list
5. Click on either the name of the business or View Report.
6. At this point you should see information relating to the particular self storage business you chose in the previous step.
Here is what to look for:
- Under the name of the Vancouver self storage company there is a BBB Rating. Better Business Bureau Ratings follow an A – F scale. A, and its variations, represent the best companies while F, and its variations, represent the worst companies. You can think of the BBB Rating as a general score for that particular storage company.
- The BBB Accreditation area tells you how long that particular Vancouver storage company has belonged to the BBB.
- The BBB Rating area briefly discusses the reasons why a particular storage company is given a particular grade.
- The Business Contact and Profile area gives you pertinent information about the given business; everything from its address, to its website address, to its email address.
- The Customer Complaint History provides a general overview as to the complaints laid against a particular self storage company, as well as how they were dealt with.
When dealing with finding reliable Vancouver self storage, we find the Customer Complaint History to be of most use. It is in this area that you find out how a particular business deals with problematic circumstances. Do they accept the issue and attempt to fix it, or do they simply ignore it?
The one problem we have found in regards to the Customer Complaint History is that many issues are said to have been Administratively Closed. Apparently this is a situation in which the BBB believes the business has attempted to rectify the situation (to a suitable degree); however, the customer disagreed. In order to clarify such cases, you may need to actually physically phone up the BBB.
Conclusion
Admittedly the Better Business Bureau is not void of problems; for instance, there have been claims of conflicts of interest since BBB members actually pay dues to the company reviewing them. Despite saying this, we believe that the information they provide can be quite useful when attempting to find reliable Vancouver Self Storage. As mentioned above, when viewing their website, we recommend that you focus on the complaint history of a given company. After all, you generally don’t need to know how a storage company acts when things go well. Rather, you need to know how they act when things don’t go so well.