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I love Best Buy….But they are stressing the relationship (part 2)

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  • I love Best Buy….But they are stressing the relationship (part 2)

    I think this goes in the spirit of Sucky customers, but this was sucky CUSTOMER SERVICE. I have worked in customer service, so I am a very patient person, but this got under my skin.

    Someone may remember when I returned my surround sound / DVD player a while ago. It took them THREE WEEKS to determine that that it was the laser assembly was bad (which I told them when I dropped it off, it even said that I suspected that on the service ticket) and that since it was discontinued and they could not get a part for it, they would replace it. Fine.

    I go to my local Best Buy and take the speakers and everything back to the guy at the counter. He calls someone from the department and says “I need someone from home theater to do a No-Limit exchange.” A little history here, I used to work in Home Theater AT Best Buy in my hometown. I knew what I was looking for when I bought a Samsung 800 watt, 5 disk home theater in a box. There was an open box that had a huge scratch on the side of the sub woofer that made it not pretty. I shop at Best Buy every week or so. I watched that thing drop in price from New at $260 to open box at $220, then get reduced to $190, $175, $165, and finally $150 when I bought it. I was very happy. I suspect that it was not only an open box, but also a floor model because it wore out so fast. To paraphrase the Best Buy service plan “we will exchange it for a new model that has the same features, if the price has dropped there will be no refund.”

    Anyway, back to my story, So the guy comes up form home theater and takes my paperwork and walks back to the department…leaving me standing there. I walked back there because I knew that mine was discontinued, and I wanted to have some say in choosing my new one. The guy tells me that based on what I had, here are my two choices, and proceeds to show me an Insignia brand one disk 500W, 1 disk DVD, or 500W DVD/VCR system. Here is the conversation between BB (best buy) and me. Now, keep in mind, I am a very calm individual, I can count the times in my 28 year life that I have lost my temper on one hand.

    BB: Here are the two you can have.

    Me: No.

    BB: The model you bought was $150, so this one would be free, but that one is $10 more.

    Me: (Points at new model that replaced the one I bought) This model is the new model of the one I bought. I did not buy a warranty on $150, I bought a warranty on my home theater system.

    BB: But if you upgrade you have to pay the difference.

    Me: I understand that, but I am not asking for an upgrade. I simply want what I had.

    BB: So which of these two do you want?

    Me: You do not understand. You have my receipt in your hand with the PSP (Protection Service Plan) fine print on the nice protective sleeve. Please read the fine print. I have. It says that if you determine, at your discretion, that you want to replace it that you will replace it with a new model with the same specifications per the manufacturer’s specifications. You are trying to not only downgrade me from a Samsung to an Insignia off brand, you are taking me from a 800watt system to a 500 watt system, from a 5 disk to a 1 disk, and the Insignia has no DVI out-put like my old system.

    BB: Well, technology has changed, and the new Samsung has new features, you have to pay the difference. Yours was $150, this one is $259, so you will have to pay $109.

    Me: First off, you will notice that Samsung has series style model numbers, meaning that if they have two drastically different models then they will have drastically different model numbers, but when they just discontinue an old model and replace it with a new design they only increase the number by 1. If you look at my model number, and this model number, there is only a one digit difference, meaning that this was just a style change. The wattage is the same, the features are all the same…except this has no DVI output which means I have to switch down to component video. I’m ok with that. Secondly, while I PAID $150 for my unit, the original selling price was $249. Meaning, if you did somehow convince me that I had to pay the difference, it would only be $10.

    BB: But you only paid $150…

    Me: Consider this, if I had paid $249, but used a 10% off coupon, would you make me now pay that 10%?

    BB: No.

    Me: The same principal applies, I bought an item, you are replacing an item. The PSP insures the item, not the amount of money that I spent.

    BB: I have to get my manager.

    Me: Take your time.

    The manager comes over. I explain that I bought Samsung because my TV is a Samsung and the remote for the DVD runs the TV, AND because I like the Samsung brand. I do not like the Insignia brand. I bought a 5 disk player, because I wanted a 5 disk player. I bought a warranty that covered my Samsung 5 disk DVD player, and I would expect that it would be replaced by a Samsung 5 disk DVD player, considering that they are still available.

    The manager agreed, and the checkout proceeded. I loaded my new system in my car and went back in the store. I found the manager. He asked if there was any problem. I pulled from my pocket my Rewards Zone envelope that I had just got in the mail that week.

    I said “I just wanted to let you know that I was ready to not shop here again over this transaction; you saved Best Buy my business. I have been a Best Buy customer for a long time, and have a lot of disposable income.” I held up my Rewards Zone paperwork. For those of you that know what Rewards Zone is, I just broke $300 I have received in those $5 coupons. Rewards Zone gives used to give you $5 back for every $125 you spent, last fall they changed it to $5 per $225 I think. That means over $7500 in purchases over the last 2 years.

    The manager called over all the home theater staff and had me repeat my story and what I had just told him. He said a few motivating words about how important customer service is, and how every single customer is important. He thanked me for my time. I started to walk away and he pointed at the kid that started my exchange and said “we need to talk…Now.”

  • #2
    I feel bad for that kid. You never know what's going to piss off your superiors. It's like damned if you do, damned if you don't. When I worked at Arby's they said they wanted the employees to take initiative. When I did, they would get pissed and be all, "Did I TELL you to do that? No. Do what I tell you to do." Or they would tell me to stay in one place and then yell at me for not taking the initiative to clean the floor or something, even thought they would have yelled at me anyway for moving from my position.

    But kudos to you for knowing your own warranty guidelines.
    Check out my cosplay social group!
    http://customerssuck.com/board/group.php?groupid=18

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    • #3
      This is a tough call for me. I'm glad you stuck to your guns and got what you deserved under the warranty, but I feel bad for the kid, because it was likely a result of poor training on the mgmt's part that he thought the warranty worked that way--I doubt he was personally trying to screw you. Hopefully it will all work out in the end, and BB will have the good sense to better educate the employees on their policies.

      Also, just as a side note, the reason I feel about this is due to my experiences. I work in a very customer-driven field, with many "high ticket" customers, far exceeding your spending. While we are told to make them happy, we can get in plenty of trouble if we let them bend the rules. If he bent the rules for you, he could have lost his job. For all he knew, the way the warranty was explained to him, he was following the rules.

      Again, I don't think you were an SC, at all. I think you did what you needed to do, and I praise you for sticking to your guns and remaining calm. All of us on here know how few people seem to be able to do that anymore.
      "In the end I was the mean girl/or somebody's in between girl"~Neko Case

      “You don't need many words if you already know what you're talking about.” ~William Stafford

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      • #4
        I agree with the above poster, you weren't an SC at all. I had a couple of PSPs and they all said replacements would meet or exceed the mfr's specs. The manager simply honered the PSP like he was supposed to. As for the kid? He was probably clueless.

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        • #5
          I was gonna go off... But I don't think the kid REALLY deserves it... He screwed up, made a bad situation worse, and got saved by a decent Manager. It happens, it's Retail. I don't feel particularly sorry for him, sounds like a learning experiance. They are only bad if you don't listen to them.

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          • #6
            Quoth myswtghst View Post
            This is a tough call for me. I'm glad you stuck to your guns and got what you deserved under the warranty, but I feel bad for the kid, because it was likely a result of poor training on the mgmt's part that he thought the warranty worked that way--I doubt he was personally trying to screw you. Hopefully it will all work out in the end, and BB will have the good sense to better educate the employees on their policies.
            It may not be bad training but bad policies that have $$$ in mind and not the customer. Every day I see what I am allowed to exchange customer's phones for and a lot of times it is a very shitty exchange, lost features, something reliable to something that is crap, and so on.
            Quote Dalesys:
            ... as in "Ifn thet dawg comes at me, Ima gonna shutz ma panz!"

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            • #7
              *mutters something about her reward zone certificates just hitting the 500 mark...coughs* Wow..well.. I guess being a bit of a PITA does go a long way when you want to get service at Best Buy.

              I'm loathing going in on Friday when I have to point out to them that the PSP on my PC has a wrong expiration date. It's showing expiring this year, instead of 2009. That's going to be fun to fix.
              Random conversation:
              Me: Okay..so I think I get why Zoro wears a bandana
              DDD: Cuz it's cool

              So, by using the Doctor's reasoning, bow ties, fezzes and bandanas are cool.

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              • #8
                I've noticed the hard-headedness of Best Buy employees as well. About 8 years ago, I bought my first DVD player. At the time, Best Buy was having a deal where, if you bought a DVD player, you got 5 free DVDs. I thought that was a good deal, so I found a floor model DVD player for $258 (dang, they were expensive then). When I checked out, I asked about the 5 free DVDs. The cashier told me she would have to get a manager.

                When the manager came, he told me that the 5 free DVD deal did not apply to floor model merchandise. I asked him where in any of the adveritsing it said that (I knew it didn't say that anywhere.) However, no matter how I tried, I couldn't get him to give me my 5 free DVDs.

                Finally, after about a half an hour of arguing, he relented and gave me 3 free DVDs.

                That experience soured me on Best Buy for a long time.

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