Customer Has Positive Experience At Best Buy

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Ladies and gentlemen, mark this day on your calendars. Why? As unbelievable as it may seem, someone actually had a positive experience at Best Buy.

An account of a shopping experience at Best Buy that ended…well? That can’t be. We thought that Dave must have been mistaken, but no: he was happy and the customer service he received was excellent. It even involved an open-box item.
 
Seriously? Positive (or, at least, not unpleasant) experiences are the norm at retail; it's just that nobody has a reason to report those.

And who buys an open-box item without examining it first?
 
Positive? It would have been way more positive if they had received the product as it was described in the first place.
 
Seriously? Positive (or, at least, not unpleasant) experiences are the norm at retail; it's just that nobody has a reason to report those.

And who buys an open-box item without examining it first?

Yeah, probably the norm in retail... but this is Best Buy we're talking about.
 
Well, you can always take it as. Best Buy is usually so bad, that the chance it gets to be good, it's Front Page News!
 
Yeah, probably the norm in retail... but this is Best Buy we're talking about.

Exactly. You tend to brag with things out of the norm. For most places, good service is normal. Best Buy, it's the opposite.

I've been about split 50/50 at Best Buy, but TBH, I only go in for the sales on movies. All PC stuff I can get online for lower costs. I haven't been in one for 3-4 years...
 
I go into BB with a sour attitude and a sense of superiority to ensure a bad experience.
 
I'm generally happy with BB as long as I have zero interaction with any employees besides the person working the returns counter.

Even the checkout people are difficult to deal with.
 
We were on vacation last year in Myrtle Beach, SC and went in this very same Best Buy location. I was looking at e-readers and I asked one of the salesmen if they had any Kindle Paperwhites in stock. He said no and went on to tell me how much better a Barnes & Noble Nook with the backlit screen was. I didn't go there for the Nook, I just wanted a Paperwhite and I was asking a simple question but this guy wouldn't back down about the Nook so we just left. It's pretty sad when you get hassled by a salesman so bad you just want to leave the store.

My wife got me the Paperwhite for Christmas from Amazon and where I had already owned a previous generation Kindle all my books were right there. I've even loaded free books from other websites onto it and everything works great. (This is actually one of the things the sales person at Best Buy lied to me about, he said I couldn't put non-Amazon purchased books on the Kindle Paperwhite.)

This guy may have had a good experience, and good for him, but we certainly did not. I guess it just depends on who you talk to.
 
I do my homework (usually through here!) before buying most my TV's, or gaming peripherals and I usually end up buying it at Best Buy, since I've got a card through them. 18 months to pay for something is sweeeet.

Anyway, last time I was in there, I picked up a TV; the guy didn't try to up-sell me, didn't try to gimme some line about their HDMI cables and offered to wheel it out for me, without needing to ask for it.

And on top of that, wouldn't take a tip for the help carrying it, despite being out of the managers viewing range.

I'd say overall, I had a positive experience.

Obviously, I've had negative ones... but not in the past few years.
 
I made a major purchase at Best Buy recently and it went reasonably well. I wasn't blown away, nor was I disappointed. I just left the store thinking "that was a reasonable experience".

Most people probably leave Best Buy thinking the exact same thing. The problem, though, is that too many end up leaving the store thinking "that was a poor experience" compared to other retailers. It's not an insurmountable thing for Best Buy to overcome by any stretch.
 
It is the old adage, Satisfied Customers Tell their Friends, Angry Customers Tell everybody.

I actually try to make a point when I get "better than normal" service to tell managers, or corporate or whoever.

Having worked retail, hearing "we had customer compliments" from the boss was always nice, especially since the managers were accustomed to saying "we had complaints."

Best Buy has a long road to recovery, and while I hate some of what they do/did, I live too far from a microcenter for my "i'm bored, lets look at cool stuff" trips.
 
I'm not saying Best Buy doesn't have its issues however, tact can be a very effective tool. LeninGHOLA gets it.
 
Just bought a TV at BestBuy... had a positive experience. They price match within 30 days of your purchase and I got 300$ off after I bought the TV.
 
i picked up a camera lens at bestbuy this weekend. i looked it on bb website before i went to the store to see if it was in stock. it was, priced at 108.99. i go to the store and it rings up at 129.99. i tell the employee that it is 108.99 on the website and he asks if i can show him? really? its your website and i have to look it up for you? so i pull out my phone and show him it is 108.99 and he changes the price for me.

the real problem with this is, if it is 108.99 on their website, why is it ringing up as 129.99 in store? that is complete bs, and if youre not paying attention you will over pay.
 
I'm not saying Best Buy doesn't have its issues however, tact can be a very effective tool. LeninGHOLA gets it.

Yea. I don't really care for BB customer service, but my experience has been fine. I tend to treat retail employees pretty well having worked retail when I was a young dude.

That said; if an employee comes up and applies the pressure to buy something I don't want, I try to tell them nicely that I know more than they do and don't need the help.
 
I actually just had a very nice bit of service from BB in dropping off some items for e-waste disposal--the customer service pesron was genuinely friendly, professional, efficient, and didn't try to upsell or otherwise ask if I was buying anything that day. It was so refreshingly good service (especially at a BB) that I let the manager know on the way out. It was the first experience at BB in years that made me actually more willing to come back. Their prices still ensure that it is only a time sensitive/very expensive to ship item that I would purchase there, but it sure would help not to have the hoardes of annoying/unhelpful from assaulting me if/when I shop there.
 
i picked up a camera lens at bestbuy this weekend. i looked it on bb website before i went to the store to see if it was in stock. it was, priced at 108.99. i go to the store and it rings up at 129.99. i tell the employee that it is 108.99 on the website and he asks if i can show him? really? its your website and i have to look it up for you? so i pull out my phone and show him it is 108.99 and he changes the price for me.

the real problem with this is, if it is 108.99 on their website, why is it ringing up as 129.99 in store? that is complete bs, and if youre not paying attention you will over pay.

At least they match their own website. Some stores don't.
 
[Tripod]MajorPayne;1039713890 said:
I honestly thought this might have been a link to an Onion news report when I clicked.
I was almost sure it was from the Onion.
Sometimes, reality beats them.
 
I actually try to make a point when I get "better than normal" service to tell managers, or corporate or whoever.

When I get superior service that isn't expected or is beyond the norm or above and beyond, I let the manager know who it was that made my experience great. I don't know if the person gets the thumbs up or a positive review or anything, but I hope so. Sometimes, customer service is top notch, and it does keep a customer. The same way that really bad customer service drives them away.
 
sign o' the end times: a B&M retailer does the right thing & it's FRONT PAGE NEWS!
 
When I get superior service that isn't expected or is beyond the norm or above and beyond, I let the manager know who it was that made my experience great. I don't know if the person gets the thumbs up or a positive review or anything, but I hope so. Sometimes, customer service is top notch, and it does keep a customer. The same way that really bad customer service drives them away.

Not to toot my own horn, but when I worked for Best Buy in the pre Geek Squad days (10 years ago), I was a tech. And even though I was a tech I was expected to sell everything. The computers manager wasn't my manager so I just laughed him off and treated everyone in the store like a friend and asked them about what they wanted and showed them the options. When it came to the whole warranty/service plan crap I just went "We do offer service plans on our products and if you are interested it's no problem at all." Some people would be interested and ask what it covered, others would just say no and go on their way. It really isn't hard to be a salesperson. You just have to be honest and figure out what's the best thing for them, not the most expensive thing.

Due to that, we became the busiest store in the district and I always had people coming in saying that I helped their friend and they wanted me to help them find something. The computers manager hated me until he saw the numbers and the sales manager/GM couldn't be happier.

They just don't get it right on their trainings. If they would just teach their salespeople to act like normal human beings helping each other, they'd do fine.
 
After many years of being an enthusiast of electronics and computers, you should know what Best Buy is good for. Up until they promised price matching a handful of weeks ago it wasn't much. That said I've bought 4 (substantially priced) TVs from BB/Mongolia in the last 5 years and have had nothing but great experiences. As long as you are assertive there is no awkward pressure.

Here was my experience: Told the rep I've done research, asked a few questions, told him/her to not try to upsell me, shake hands and walk out. Have at least 3 free calibration vouchers sitting around they gave me, but again - know what you are getting into - I'm not going to have some 18 year old kid stick suction cups to my TV and say he is calibrating it ISF standards, even if for free. I thought I had issues with a higher end Samsung Plasma when 3d first came around. Turned out nothing was wrong (was getting more "static" noise from the plasma than I was used to, especially in 3d). Nevertheless Samsung sent a tech to my house (who was great) and he sat and did a Best Buy "calibration" with me. He then did a quick ISF calibration just cause he was cool, it was Black Friday and I was his only call... we had a couple IPA's and called it a day. Would never let a BB "tech" touch my equipment.

Best Buy has also taken returns no questions asked (much like microcenter) and seemingly tried to help whenever possible. Oh and they have sent me like $50 in gift certificates in the last 2 months, always a plus.

I would hate to see Best Buy fail. I live in the Twin Cities and they are a large part of our business community. I have a family friend who was basically the head of the pilot for the ROWE program they just killed. He has said its getting so stressful with the corporate restructuring its like slowly dying of a thousand paper cuts. Hopefully BB will eventually figure it out.
 
I just scored a pretty nice 70" Visio panel from BB just before Valentines day 2013.
No pressure, they did not force the damn warranty on me, everybody stayed up front and knowledgeable.
Much to my surprise, they matched the TV's price to COSTCO which usually has stupid low prices on things. I got 75$ knocked off my price, and walked out the door $1715 all day with my new set.

BB is good for large electronic consumer items, media, phones, accessories for shit, car-audio, and when you need said key item for business travel.
I can't completely complain about them. Christmas they usually have some awesome gift-card promotions and bundle deals.

Believe it or not, show-rooming worked in the case of buying the TV. While it's a Visio (and I swore I'd never buy a Visio), their salesman, and having the actual set in front of others comparison was a real good selling point of their business model for once.
 
I've never had a bad experience at Best Buy. Been to maybe 4 different locations maybe 12 time total in my life...
 
Yeah, it's not like it's that rare, it's just that the loudest voices are the complainers.

A friend of mine has always gone to the local BB with his computer troubles and they've never tried to give him the run-around or up-sell him on some fancy service plan. They tell him what's wrong, even for free sometimes, and then he comes to me and asks if I have time to fix it, and if not, I tell him what to expect if he takes it to Geek Squad and with that knowledge he's been A-OK.

Same principal goes for PC support techs. Lots of people complain about Dell; and yeah, you do have to get through the Indian dudes with their scripts, but once you talk to a high level tech, and/or once you get a local service tech out to your house to actually do the work, they're decent hard-working people -- at least, they have been for me. I had a lemon of a laptop a few years ago, and after so many part replacements, I got a complete system replacement -- one that was 2 years "better" than the original b/c it was based on what I paid 2 years earlier.
 
It really isn't hard to be a salesperson. You just have to be honest and figure out what's the best thing for them, not the most expensive thing.

So in other words, you completely disregarded the training and instruction given to you at orientation. :p
 
I must be living in a different dimension, because 99% of my Best Buy experiences have been great. They price match with any local retailer and major online retailers, they offer 0% financing, their return policies are good, and employees are almost always friendly and helpful.

In the past 10 years, I've been to about 20 different Best Buy stores and spent at least $40,000. Almost every purchase was price-matched too, so I've been getting great deals.

Also, to their credit, all of the Best Buy stores I've been to have supported local concealed carry laws (ie. In states with concealed carry, Best Buy does not post no firearms signs).

fwiw, I am familiar with many of the negative stories about Best Buy, like holiday online shopping fisacos, failure to delivery before xmas, shoplifting/security horror stories, the counterfeit money story, price match problems, jerk employees/managers, extended warranty harassment, etc.
 
i picked up a camera lens at bestbuy this weekend. i looked it on bb website before i went to the store to see if it was in stock. it was, priced at 108.99. i go to the store and it rings up at 129.99. i tell the employee that it is 108.99 on the website and he asks if i can show him? really? its your website and i have to look it up for you? so i pull out my phone and show him it is 108.99 and he changes the price for me.

the real problem with this is, if it is 108.99 on their website, why is it ringing up as 129.99 in store? that is complete bs, and if youre not paying attention you will over pay.

Before everyone had usable web access in their pockets, BB would intentionally bait-and-switch people with this exact same scenario. But they got sued and now they will at least honor their own prices. But if you didn't have your phone with you, then you probably would have left the store pissed and empty handed. But make no mistake, this is still the same bait-and-switch bullshit that they've done in the past, and it's plainly obvious that they will still try to screw you in every crevice they can get access to.
 
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