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Best Buy Says Customers Not Always Right
linuxwrangler writes "Best Buy is one of the retailers that has now decided that the customer is not always right. Best Buy consultant Larry Selden has identified "demon customers" like those who file for a rebate then return the item. OK, I get that one (hey Best Buy: dump those customer-despised rebates and you won't have that problem...). Other categories like customers who only buy during sales are more interesting. Best Buy declined comment on how they are dealing with those customers. Some stores have actually "fired" customers. Welcome to the end result of all that customer information data mining."
RTFA.
Some other guy from another retailer with a mere 21 stores in the same market is talking about 'firing customers'. The guy from best buy went out of his way to say that they won't give up on 'problem' customers.
C'mon people, follow the narrative.
Actually the CEO of Best Buy Refused his last bonus offering and had it dispersed among lower ranking employees
4 /05/17/daily12.html
http://www.bizjournals.com/twincities/stories/200
Beware ignorance.
There is evidence to prove both Democrats and Republicans are lying cocksuckers. Vote independently.
Best Buy, like most stores that offer rebates, print and gives you an additional copy of the receipt for just that purpose. As for the UPC, Best Buy will accept photocopies of them. I found this out when I bought a HD form them and it had 2 rebates, one from the manufacturer and one from them. I called customer support for Best Buy and they said they accept photocopies in that case. Unfortunately I have still had the problem of the rebate check from Best Buy being $10 or so dollars short of what it was supposed to be though.....
Rebates are not done just for the fact that some people won't claim them...
They're also done as a limiting mechanism for loss-leader items. If they want to reduce the price of an item to less than cost, they most likely want to make sure you can only claim that deal once... and that's where a rebate with "limit 1 per household" kicks in. Sure, some people might use two mailing addresses to get it twice, but nobody's going to be able to grab 20 of the item and get the post-rebate price.
"On the other hand, I did run an ISP, so I know what it's like when you give a customer an unlimited account, based on a pool of bandwidth, only to discover they are a leech, and bring down the quality of service for all customers. "
you offer unlimited, and they us eit, they are not leeching, they are using what they paid for, the ISP is the one who screwed up. Don't give me expected usage, or worse, avaerage use as an excuse. The ISP said, here take all you want, so they did.
No different then going to an allyou can eat buffet, and then eating all you can eat.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Well.. if the return policy does not require to you to return the rebate cupons un-filled out.. then there is nothing wrong with an employee suggesting this.
The problem is a broken return policy.
HEck.. the problem is a return policy at all!
A business is under no obligation legally to take back a returned item once sold, as long as it is not defective and was not sold under false pretenses. Businesses like BestBuy take returns in the first place as a courtesy to customers, because it's something people expect from large stores.
From the article:
Best Buy executive vice president Philip Schoonover said the idea of "firing" some customers is one place where Best Buy disagrees with Selden. The company will try to find ways to make money-losing customers profitable, he said.
Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!
No highly modded post has mentioned this yet, so I'll do it. From the article:
/. summaries are) is wrong. The Best Buy VP specifically said "firing" customers is wrong. I'm not saying I like Best Buy or their rebate policies, or pushy sales reps, or questionable return policies, but they (apparently) are NOT looking at "firing" customers.
"Best Buy executive vice president Philip Schoonover said the idea of "firing" some customers is one place where Best Buy disagrees with Selden. The company will try to find ways to make money-losing customers profitable, he said."
In other words, the article summary (as so many
-Trillian
You don't even have to wait for the sale. I've grown the habit of always asking for 10 or 15 percent off any item over US$100. The worst that I get is "no", and that's rare. The only places I don't try it is restaurants and warehouse stores -- basically any other place where I have face-to-face contact with a sales agent.
When I go to Best Buy, I just ask for 10% off, tell them I saw it in a competitors advert. If they need help w/ the register transaction, I tell them "to hit F6". If I'm feeling frisky, I'll ask for 20 or 25, then play down to the 10 that I wanted. I've done this at least a dozen times at Best Buy, and it's worked each one.
You'd be surprised at how often the posted price is up for negotiation. I guess it's that we've been trained well as consumers to not ask for a break on price.
Not sure where you got your information, but Best Buy doesn't do commission sales. When I worked there, there was other corporate pressure, but the "non-commissioned salespeople" label has long been a key differentiator in their eyes.
The corporate pressure I saw was primarily based around selling the extended warranties. That kind of pressure usually comes from even higher - the shareholders. Warranties have a very large profit margin.
Most all manufacturers have warrantees. If a product breaks down on it's own, you can send it in (up to a year). On the other hand, if you have a service plan, you get about 3 years of coverage, you can take it back to the store for an instant return (rather then waiting for the mail) and the service plan covers you if you break it yourself (such as a broken screen on a PDA).
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
Businesses like BestBuy take returns in the first place as a courtesy to customers, because it's something people expect from large stores.
Well, close. It's because of competition. If a competitor has a better return policy that's a good reason to buy from them instead. Their prices are so often the same that a different return policy could make a significant difference espeicially with higher priced items.
If they illiminated their return policy without lowering their prices their days would be numbered. In order to avoid losing business all the retailers would have to do it at the same time. Of course, some brick and mortar stores are now instituting 15% restocking fees for all non-defective returns just like many online retailers.
Quite an experience to live in fear, isn't it? That's what it is to be a slave.
I work for a major department store chain as a your basic associate (younger geeks have to find crap first jobs as we all know). Now I agree with all of you when it comes to the shopping experience: leave me the hell alone, if I need your help I'll ask for it.
But the thing is, it's not how you or I want your shopping experience to be, it's how the management wants your shoppping experience to be.
I didn't say hi to you within 30 seconds of your walking into my department? Bad associate!
I did say hi to you, but a manager walked by so now they insist I have to say hi to you again, even though that just makes you mad.
Done shopping? NO! How about more of the stuff you've got now, but in different colors/styles or accessories even though you told me you only came in for a pair of socks.
Now you're done shopping? Would you like to put this on our store issued credit card? Don't have one? Well what's holding you back from opening a 25% interest account? I must insist!
(Incidentally they feed us BS saying that the real reason they issue cards is because those customers who have them tend to be more loyal and spend more than on your standard everyday credit card, but if that was the case why charge so much interest?)
Now that our transaction is complete, and all you want to do is get the hell out of here, would you like to fill out a feedback card describing your shopping experience and determing my worth as a human being to my superiors?
Unless your dealing with just a complete asshole, odds are the employee is as equally annoyed as you are by pushing those nonsense extras.
Cut us some slack ehh?
I worked @ Best Buy years ago. Here's the deal about the PSP's. You were forced to sell them. Didn't sell them? You didn't keep your job. Wasn't routinuely aggressive? You didn't keep your job. Didn't meet an unofficial "quota" selling PSP's? You didn't keep your job. BB will completely deny that they are biased about this. It will be an excuse to fire you due to "lack of motivation". It is true, we got no commission. You sometimes would get prizes or a certificate saying "Good Job" for being a top-seller of their service plans. Unlike with most items in the store, the profit margins on those items were astronomical. BB boasted that the margins were 30%-70%, depending ont he department in the instructional or routine sales ads. This is comparison to how most items in store are 1%-15% margin, except car audio & HDTV which are in the 30-50% range. Every month we had to watch videos about it and our managers/supervisors would be on our cases about it. Are they worthless? For the /. crowd buying electronics, yes. For the standard soccer mom, they are worth it because you don't want to go through hell when it hits the fan.
If you want to shut them up very quickly I use the line when pushed, "I use to work for you guys selling PSPs and find them to be worthless." Be sure to use the acronyms since only current/ex-employees will use those terms.
I have learned many things being a former employee for bestbuy, hence why I am a former employee due to the fact that i despised so many of their practices.
For starters, the best buy in brentwood tennessee, i have known the managers there to throw customers out or not let them purchase very large items in home theater if they were not willing to get the service plan, and this was a manager. This stuff happened all the time if people refused to purchase accessories or more stuff all over the store.
Second, I started working in the computer department, wanting to kill a day and get paid for it, i sat down and read the whole computer department training manual. I found out a few weeks later that I was the only person in the history of that best buy to actually fully read one of the training manuals, most of the time they dont even read them. In the computer department i would walk by and hear some of the most outlandish claims thrown out by salesmen, and most of them confided in me that they didnt know the first thing about computers, they only knew prices, not what was best for the customer. Lastly are the service plans. Best buy used to have a policy fo judging sales people by their service plan sales but it had been cancelled a few months before i joined. I would offer the service plan to those people and items I thought it would actually be useful on, mainly emachines since if they broke they had a policy of not trying to fix it but just replacing it with whatever model was equal to the price that person purchased theirs at, a hell of a deal if your pc breaks every 6 months. I had been talked to many times for not hawking the service plans extremely hard, even if the person obviously did not want one.
One final item, which may not be unusual for a corporation of that size, but still pissed me off. One of my friends working there completely destroyed his back doing lifting for them. A few days after his accident while he was working he was fired, due to some lame excuse about paperwork which no one does. Of course the friend filed suit but was constantly followed by a private investigator to make sure he wasnt doing anything that could be used against him in court.
Anyway, thats just my 2 cents from a former employee, I still purchase things there but usually only on sales.
I always find "No thanks, under EU law it's covered by the manufacturer for five years anyway" is a great way to shut them up.
"Extended warranties" are just a cheap form of insurance policy, with a one-payment premium, no surrender value and {probably} a claims procedure designed to discourage claims. Great for the insurance company, but to get the best value out of it as a customer, you really need your own paper recycling facility. Yet, incredibly, people are stupid enough to pay for them. This suggests to me that they don't know how something works, whether that's the insurance or the electronics. But then again, there's a fine tradition of getting fat off other people's ignorance .....
..... drops sharply over the first few months, stays constant, begins rising again after a fixed time). In fact, we used to deliberately pre-stress many of the units we made, by running them for a few hours at high ambient temperature and then rapidly cooling them, before giving them a final test. Better an important component fails in our test chamber than on the customer's premises ..... especially if the thing is strapped to the engine of a muddy tractor ..... And for the failure rates we experienced and the cost of corrective action {most of the failures were repairable ..... unless they went on fire ..... it was always fun when that happened} this testing was still cheaper, and less work, than honouring a warranty.
Having worked in the electronics industry, I know about the bathtub curve (the probability of failure plotted against time resembles a side view of a bathtub
The point is, if just about anything electronic doesn't break within the first year -- where it's covered by law -- then it'll probably last ten years or more. {Of course you have to allow for the Six B's (batteries, bulbs, brushes, belts, bearings, blades); but since these are usually designed to be field-replaceable, they fall outside the scope of any warranty.} Extended warranties are almost never worthwhile -- if you ever have to claim on it, a new appliance even better than the one you bought probably will not cost you much more than the extended warranty plan.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
Looking at the mail address ajs318 might be british. I don't know if they have legally mandated coverage, but here in Denmark we have 2 years (with a change in the "burden of evidence" after six months, after that the customer needs to argue that the defect was not caused by treating the item wrongly). There are of cause stores that try to weasel out, but then there is a cheap (~$10, refunded if you win), government sponsored organisation to complain to, and in the worst case the courts and the media to help you (obviously this does not work in all cases, but if you avoid really shady businesses it gives quite good protection).
You actually helped out the manager by doing that, the manager gets bonuses based on percentage of service plans to total revenue.. if they keep the revenue without service down that helps them.... I worked at best buy for 3 years, and if someone wanted to buy a big tv without service that tv wouldn't be in stock
wud
Under this plan, I tried taking the stereo back because it wasn't functioning properly.
The moral of this story: Always purchase electronics with a credit card. If the merchant won't take it back and immediately exchange it for a working version of the same product (no 2 weeks waiting for repair, I'm talking about immediate exchange right there in the store), call your credit card company and dispute the charge. Works every time. The fact of the matter is that the credit laws protect you because you do not have to pay for goods or services that you never received, or were defective. The credit card company can't bill you for them and will issue a chargeback which means the merchant won't get their money either.
Also, if a merchant gets too many chargebacks in a certain period of time, the credit card company will revoke their merchant account, leaving them unable to accept credit cards period.
This is also a highly effective bargaining tool if the customer service rep is giving you a hassle about returning the item. Just tell them you will dispute the charge with your CC company if they don't accept the return right this second. They will immediately cave, because they know they don't have a chance of winning that battle.
"When the president does it, that means it's not illegal." - Richard M. Nixon
I used to to repairs. When VCR's were $600-$1200, they made sense to spend a couple hours fixing them. Replacing all the belts, repacing the head, and doing a full alignment took a couple hours. You go broke attempting that on sub $100 vcr's. Due to the falling price of consumer electronics and warranty payments, and the increase in skills needed, and additional special tools, jigs, service software, test equipment, etc, the profits are not there unless you do depot level repair on a single product line, such as TIVO's. No nonger can a small shop do repairs on boom boxes, tv's, video game consoles, camcorders, DVD's, CD's, car audio, and microwaves and pay the rent.
That is why it's shipped to headquarters, then gets panned out to the manufacture's depot. It's where the service tools, jigs, parts, and trained tech is for that item. So much is trade secret stuff nowdays, many items can't be repaired by the local shop.
I moved on to R&D. It pays the bills.
The truth shall set you free!
He also said that he regularly saw his boss, who DID receive commission, lie to customers and say that he didn't.
Another irritation is that even with the extended warranty, you can expect to be without your item for quite some time if it breaks. I had a camcorder which broke within 4 months of purchase. It took 6 weeks to be repaired. That was pretty annoying since we went on a family vacation during that time.
My last straw at Best Buy went something like that. I was buying a birthday present for my sister (A digital camera) and the salesweasel was giving me the hard sell. "Well, you realise, if this breaks, you can't bring it back here."
"Oh YES I CAN!"
"Well, not if it breaks after blah blah blah"
"well, are you saying that these cameras are pieces of crap and break a lot?"
(Silence)
"Since you're so unconfident in this cameras worksmanship, I don't think I want it anymore."
(blubbering)
I then went across the street to circuit city, and bought the same camera with no hassle.
I understand you have a new policy concerning customers, and I believe that I am the customer you are targeting with that policy. I hereby put you on notice that I *will* only buy things from you when they are on sale because they are otherwise overpriced in your store (MSRP, my ass). And if I buy it with a rebate, fulfill the rebate and then find that I am unsatisfied with the product, I *will* return it, and you can worry about the rebate issues.
On the day that you stop having good sales and rebates I will no longer buy from you. I am a veteran of the dot-com boom when everyone and their mother sold things at outrageous prices and then disappeared. I was there when 800.com sold 3 DVDs for $1 with nothing else to buy and they are now gone. Egghead.com had great sales when they went online, but no longer offered competitive pricing so good riddance. Treat me and my fellow customers like crap and you won't even have a store left in your native state of Minnesota. Until then I will suck you dry since (shocking as this may be to Best Buy's management) I am not there to give them as much of my money as I can in each individual product I buy. I want the most bang for the buck.
To those that were actually physically accosted by an employee, I don't know what magic restraint you have, but I would have put that person into an armlock at that point. NOTHING gives them the right to touch you, especially when they are trying to coerce your hard earned money in that fashion.
"Beware of he who would deny you access to information, for in his heart, he dreams himself your master."
I worked at Best Buy while looking for a full time programming job and I can tell you everything you want to know about the computer department.
:(
It is true that the managers receive bonuses based on the performance of their departments but it is based by monthly performance, so if you don't want to buy a PSP and don't want to be badgered by pressured sales people, go to buy from beginning to mid month.
Also, as any customer service or sales representative will tell you, being hostile will get you nowhere. If you antagonize me or address me as if I am beneath you, you will not get any help from me. From someone else, you will get some lip back, because it is not a job people regret losing (low paying, crappy hours, dealing with customers like you).
Last but not least. PSP (at least in my store) was a good buy ON CERTAIN ITEMS. (like emachines) We had an extraordinary number of them returned due to problems and Best Buy does not deal with manufacturer warranties. The reason people tell you "You know that you can't bring it back here if it breaks" is because many idiots bring an item back without a service plan, past the return period, and demand Best Buy to repair or replace the item. It wears down everyone in the customer service and the tech department when the customer should know that they need to contact the manufacturer.
That said, I worked in a great store, while it was a great store. Rule of thumb is: Go to a newly opened Best Buy if possible, or one where there is a lot of competition. The managers there are more experienced and customer (as well as staff) oriented because they are either:
a) training new staff or,
b) trying to retain customer base.
Our good management went away after a while (promoted internally) and supervisors, while good sales people, moved up into management and just were not so good. After that our entire computer dept. left because we could not deal with the management.
After my stints in sales, and customer service, I was amazed at how many people can be just plain rude and hostile just because someone has to ask one question (I never repeatedly asked for PSP, but I was knowlegeable about computers and thus had a better sales record, and thus was retained as an employee)
My dream is to make a "How to be a good customer" website, describing techniques of being nice AND getting what you want from the sales person (not mutually exclusive).
TANSTAAFL