There’s a term for companies like that…ummm…Chapter 11, yeah, that’s it!
Let’s face it; like governments, we get the retailers we deserve. Everybody shops price, and low price moves product. Move enough product, and you make a profit for the shareholders, who are the only people the company cares about. Because margins are tight and competition is cut-throat, no company can afford to devote resources to training a salesperson who is not under contract to stay at their job.
-Rav
My sordid Best Buy tale…
I had recently figured out a way to get a nifty new flat panel monitor and have my residency program pay for it. (They have a purposefully liberal interpretation of “medical education expenses”; our collective goal is for someone to get a copy of Grand Theft Auto III reimbursed.)
BB had a deal–a good price on a 17" flat panel, plus a $100 rebate, plus a free set of speakers by mail, which I also needed. I waltzed in on a rainy Wednesday night, grabbed said monitor, and went to check out.
The rebate form printed out with no problems, but there was no mention of the speakers. I inquired, and was told that they didn’t know about any such thing. I pulled out the sales flier, which I had taken from the bin at the front of the store, which spelled out the offer in detail. Anticipating a sticky situation, she grabbed the nearest manager.
The manager had clearly never heard of the offer, either. She examined the ad’s fine print and my monitor very carefully; yes, she said, it is an LCD flat panel monitor. Yes, it is over $599. Hmmm.
“Oh, we printed a retraction of that offer,” she said, obviously grasping at straws. (This seems to be a standard response.)
“In that case, you should have taken down the signs that were up next to these monitors with the same offer,” I said.
This manager was clearly in over her head, so she went off to consult with the uber-manager. I saw them converse, and I saw them go over to check that the sign I described was, in fact, there.
They both disappeared to the back for a minute, and I finally saw the uber-manager coming toward me…with a set of speakers under his arm. He gave them to me, profusely apologetic, and explained to the cashier how to ring them up. They had obviously been returned, but what the hell, I thought–I don’t have to wait for them to arrive in the mail.
I got them home, and found out why they had been returned–they didn’t work! At all!
I took them back the next night. Not feeling the need to explain the whole situation, I found one of the managers I had dealt with earlier, and told her that the speakers didn’t work. She seemed embarrassed that they had given me a set of speakers that had already been returned once for being defective, and quickly ran to get me a brand-new identical set of speakers.
So they will correct their mistakes at Best Buy, but only if they absolutely can’t weasel out of them any other way.
The saddest part is that they’re not even that cheap anymore, especially compared to internet retailers. They have the occasional good deal (such as the aforementioned monitor), but neither their prices nor their selection are anything special anymore.
Dr. J
Ah, yes, the nightmare of BestBuy.
This morning Seaman SpaceGhost set sail for Best Buy with two of his buddies for, well, good deals. This was at about 6:30 or so.
Being a computer geek, going to a USN computer geek school, with computer geeks in the family, the plan was to get all my Christmas shopping in one fell swoop. Everything I needed was at best buy.
And so, the sailors three entered the blue&gold pit of despair. Hundreds of denzions of the Florida panhandle crawled and pushed their way around the building. Our instructor was briefly spotted with his family, before the store reclaimed him.
Valiently, Seaman Spaceghost searched out his prizes. In less than 15 mins, he had aquired the needed DVDs and Gameboy games (plus Age of Mythology for himself). Not to exit.
But alas! The store had been opened for a mere 45 minutes, and already the line was looped around the interior of the store. The store had all of 2 cash registers open.
On the day after Thanksgiving.
Now, I don’t have a economics degree, or common sense or anything fancy like that, but one would thought they’d have more people checking customers out, instead of having Blue-clad flesh golems stumbling around the store doing, as far as I could tell, nothing.
I got into the line at 6:50. I got checked out at 8:11.
I have sinced vowed to use the internet next year. Screw you, Best Buy!
Media Play is owned by Best Buy. Don’t expect relief there.
Best Buy actually treats their employees fairly well. Most of their senior management started out as floor employees. They promote from within - even off the store floor. Despite plummeting stock prices, Best Buy has laid off only several dozen of 7,500 corporate employees.
I tried several years ago to buy an APS camera from Best Buy, couldn’t find anyone to talk to me on the first trip. Determined what I wanted at a different store, but didn’t buy it there. Best Buy was cheap enough for me to bother to go back, trap an employee, put salt on his tail so he couldn’t escape, incant the magic spell, spin around three times, and he produced the camera I wanted to purchase before disappearing in a puff of magic smoke. Yes, their customer service sucks.
Dang, SpaceGhost, your morning sounds like mine. I detailed my own day-after-Thankgiving travails with Best Buy in this thread.
The only difference was that, in my store, I think all of the registers were actually in use. If they hadn’t been, I think I would have lost it… I mean really lost it. It still took me 40-45 minutes in line, but damn. I’m never going shopping the day after Thanksgiving again.
Actually, it really, really depends. Each store is ranked within the company in certain areas, such as revenues, sales, and customer service. Generally, the stores that perform better in these company rankings treat their employees better.
Also, they don’t necessarily promote from within each individual store. You usually have to be willing to transfer to a different Best Buy location to get a promotion.
SpaceGhost, that is the problem right there. “Black Friday” is one of THE BUSIEST sales days of the year. Less than two hours in the store is actually REALLY, REALLY GOOD for that particular day (I was just at Fry’s, and the line was 2 1/2 hours long! :eek: )
Sorry SpaceGhost, I missed part of your post.
I forgot to mention that quite often, selfish employees call in sick on “Black Friday” so they don’t have to deal with the crush of customers. When I worked there for last holiday season, there were 5 cashiers scheduled for the morning. 2 called in sick, and 1 was nearly an hour late.
But, I should also add, very often managers try to schedule as few people as possible, so this is also another possibly.
(Note: I’m not excusing bad service like this at all, merely giving reasons for it).
Well, yes Monster. You do need to be willing to relocate to get promoted - that’s the nature of retail. My uncle and uncle in law both climbed the corporate ladders in retail. And it wasn’t a raise your kids in a single town career. And with Corporate in the Twin Cities, you can’t expect to become corporate managment working at a Best Buy in Toledo.
Hmm, how is saying “Best Buy employees always seem like spazzes to me” any different from saying “Hispanic kids always seem like spazzes to me”? They’re both generalizations that would make anyone who’s a member of that group feel bad. It was a valid complaint. As a blue-golf-shirted simian, I can say that at there are three types of consumer electronics retail employees:
(1) The overzealous salesmen who will try to sell that extended warranty 10 times before they give up, and is more than happy to sell you something you don’t need
(2) The nice guy who will offer his help and actually be helpful if you want help, but will leave you alone if you don’t
(3) The lazy mofo who doesn’t give a shit whether you are there are not.
Guess what? You will find each of these three types of employees at ANY full-service retail store. I can go into any Circuit City/CompUSA/Best Buy, and there will be several employees standing around talking, and no one comes to help me. I can go into any one of those same stores in a different town and be asked four times what I am looking for and do I want any help and have I heard about the service plan and do I want six months free MSN? I can tell you that if you came to the Best Buy nearest mine, you would not be helped very much if you walked into the computer section. I can tell you that if you walked into my computer section, you would be asked within 60 seconds if you needed any help, and if you lingered you would be asked by at least one other employee. The Circuit City nearest my Best Buy would be pretty helpful, but the 2nd nearest Circuit City would not.
What other people have been saying about noting names is absolutely a fine thing to do. Note people’s badges. If they DO mess up, they will be written up by their supervisor or manager. More often than not, customers who ask to see managers either (1) want the item for cheaper than the ticketed price. Whatever. (2) want the item even though it’s not in the store and we’ve already said we can get it shipped to your house for free or volunteered to check other local stores. Whatever. (3) want to see if we can substitute a different item into a package. Cool – we’re always willing to check that if it will make the customer happy. (4) are upset with an employee for something that was not the employee’s fault. Whatever. All the people that are upset with an employee for something that was the employee’s fault, and all the people that are reasonably intelligent about it, go to someone else (like, say, Customer Service maybe?) and ask to speak to the manager there. (N.B. for other readers: RickJay did this and, surprise, he got his TV. Also remember that people are, as a rule, going to be stopped at least once by another customer while checking something for you; if there are not a lot of people working, they won’t be able to just pass them off to someone else. On a moderate day, I am typically stopped 2.5 times by other people while doing something for one person. Recursion can apply.)
As far as Best Buy corporate policy? Everyone’s supposed to be approached by an employee. No employees are allowed to have cellphones on the floor except the manager on duty. This always occurs at my store, but even corporate can’t really control it if it doesn’t happen to you at yours. We can’t ever sell floor models unless the item is discontinued and on clearance, so the salesman who told you that he could was confused as to the status of that product. If the whole experience upset you so much that you said you would take your business elsewhere, why didn’t you? Did we have the best price on the product? Were we the only people who sold it? Were we the most convenient location? Or were you not that pissed off and you were just exaggerating how bad this was? You spoke to the manager, got your TV (it sounds like for 15% off), and it’s beautiful. Where’s the effin’ problem?
Sorry for the length of this rambling rant, but I attend school full-time and work about 25-30 hours a week, so I don’t like to see myself generalized into a “dumbass, lazy, shitty salesgeek” stereotype when I’m not and I work my ass off. (You said later that you didn’t generalize everyone, but nowhere within your OP did you mention “this was a one-time experience” or “not everyone is like this.” You just said “You’re all Best Buy in blue golf shirts to me.” So you can suck my ass hairs if you care to.)
Sorry, it is pretty mean to say that.
BUT in my considerable experience with Electronic SuperStores™ most employees do seem to fall under the (a) Spazzes (b) Simians, or © Flesh-Golem categories. I don’t think I have ever met a BB employee on the floor who was, well, competant.
I would like to point out that once, when I ordered from Bestbuy.com, they were suppose to ship the item within a week. The Goat fellators took two weeks to send it. So maybe it’s the whole corporate culture that’s bad.