Kathleen Edmond, Best Buy's Chief Ethics Officer

This final day of 2010, I find myself reflecting on trust – how critical it is to living in a human community and how important it is in the world of business relationships.

 Trust Across America™ (TAA) is a program from Next Decade, Inc. that seeks to “provide a framework for public companies to improve trustworthy business practices . . . and highlight companies that are exhibiting high levels of trust and integrity.” Trust Across America’s methodology is based on their proprietary FACTS™ audit that rates nearly 3000 publicly traded companies on 500 data points pertaining to:

• Financial Stability and Strength
• Accounting Conservativeness
• Corporate Integrity
• Transparency
• Sustainability

 I am delighted to report that TAA’s blog site recently recognized Best Buy as one of their “Top Bets for 2011,” encouraging readers to “buy from a company you trust.” One of only 17 companies so honored, Best Buy shares this distinction with the likes of Nike, Federal Express, Aflac and Starbucks.

 As gratifying as this compliment may be, it also reminds me of how fragile consumer (and employee) trust can be. Less than two years ago, few automakers were more trusted than Toyota. Today, their sales continue to fall as nearly every other manufacturer sees double-digit gains coming out of the recession. BP is living a similar riches-to-rags story, as are several investment firms caught in the mortgage lending crisis. The latest headlines are not good for Ernst & Young.

 Trust Across America maintains there is no such thing as a perfect company, I concur. My goal is to make sure that when Best Buy missteps, we look at the situation critically and objectively – and learn from the lessons that it gives us.

 We recently settled with the Attorney General in Connecticut over a situation that occurred a few years ago. Long story short, certain prices on our BestBuy.com website did not match those on our kiosks, which shared the same appearance, but showed in-store prices only (now kiosks always present the lowest price).  When a price difference existed for a product, confusion arose when employees used kiosks to price match against our online offers. There was no intent to deceive anyone as our training materials directed employees to not use the kiosk for price matching as kiosks reflected in-store prices and were primarily intended to be an information tool for customers, along with providing access to more products. Unfortunately, process broke down when kiosks were used to verify a price match request and caused some customers to honestly feel they were being deceived when their request was denied – worse yet, no one appeared to recognize the price conflict or elevate it for correction.  It was a simple case of tools evolving quickly along with programs that led to us trip over our own training and SOP. In resolving the case, there was no finding of wrongdoing or issuance of a fine or civil penalty, but the damage was done. For those customers involved in the case – and the thousands more who read about it in the papers – we appeared to be dishonest. For some observers our intent doesn’t matter – only their perception of our behavior.

 My questions for you:

 1)    How does a company gain or lose your trust as a consumer? As an employee?

 2)    Is it easier for you to trust or lose trust in something? Why?

 3)    What is the relationship between trust and business ethics? Are they necessarily synonymous?

 4)    Looking forward into 2011, what will you do to be the kind of friend or partner who can be trusted?  What will you do as a member of the Best Buy family to make sure that we are, and continue to be, the company that sustains trusting relationships over the long term?

  Best to all in 2011 – Kathleen