Bad Bob has gained traction over the last several years and many good businesses are getting a bad reputation because of Bad Bob’s deceptive practices. Bad Bob mainly pops up in metropolitan areas and takes advantage of customers needing garage door repairs and services. His business model, according to IDA, is comprised of heavy advertising, a focus on repair work, overcharging and performing unnecessary repairs.
How to Find Bad Bob? Bad Bob may be a disgruntled employee that has decided to start his own garage door service business and to get customers, he uses business names and marketing strategies very similar to more established garage door businesses. He will go to a customer’s home and upsell them on things such as unnecessary garage door repair work. Now upselling and overcharging is not necessarily “illegal”, but his deceptive practices, false advertising and fraud are illegal.
Why is this important to your established business? This could take away business from you and give upstanding, hardworking people in the garage door industry a bad name. It is important to find these Bad Bobs and collect evidence against them. According to IDA, here are some examples of evidence you should start collecting now:
- Deceptive Ads: Monitor local advertising including radio ads, yellow pages, social media and publications. When you see a deceptive ad, save it in your files.
- Eyewitnesses: When a customer notifies you of a Bad Bob, make sure you collect their information. Eyewitnesses are essential to an investigation.
- Invoices: Collect invoices from your customers that have had an interaction with Bad Bob. These will normally have an itemized list of what they charged, their name and contact information. This will also help in any investigation.
- News Reports: Follow news reports on these Bad Bob practices and people. If you have a story to share or add to these reports, reach out to the editor.
Once you collect this evidence, start using it against them. Of course, you do not want to come off as being disgruntled and scared of your competition so it is important how you showcase these deceptive practices. Use the media to help warn others of Bad Bob. Submit your evidence to the media and try to get them to write a story. Other ways to raise awareness include identifying these bad practices across your social media and web platforms. Tell consumers what to look out for – but do not mention names. You can also go a step further and file a consumer report as well as let the publication that ran the deceptive ads, that this is false advertising.
“Contact the radio station, television station, or publication where the ad ran. Let them know that they’re running an ad you think may be deceptive.”
Exposing these Bad Bob practices, not only helps consumers, but it also helps push and market your business as the industry leader in best practices and customer service.
For more information on Bad Bob and what you can do to protect your business and customers, check out the full article from Door+Access Systems, here.
