So rather than refusing to accept aggressive, intimidating, and underhanded sales techniques by taking their business elsewhere, you think that consumers should just tough it out and allow the salesman to waste their time, and accept the lack of respect shown by not taking “no” for an answer? Just “tune it out”, without any objection, huh? And then what kind of message would this send to the idiot managers who put these kinds of policies in place? “Gee, my ideas must be working, since people are still shopping here, and nobody is complaining.” If people don’t vote with their feet, companies will never change their retarded policies.
I’m not getting the sense of “anger” that you seem to imagine from the other posters, SPOOFE. It sounds to me like they are simply saying they refuse to shop at stores that don’t respect their customers, as well they should.
I expect to be listened to. I have little patience when people are not comprehending what I’m saying, as “No.” is about as simple a statement as I can imagine. If they persist in their sales pitch, they are showing me disrespect. They are being impolite. Having been raised by a father who was a gentleman (in deed and by Act of Congress), I value politeness and respect.
Nanoda brought up the pop-up windows. If s/he hadn’t, I was going to. I try to close pop-up windows before they have a chance to load. It irks me when I get multiple pop-ups. I delete spam without reading it. (Or even opening it, when I can.)
Anybody besides me intrigued by the irony of somebody getting hacked off at a rude & insensitive salesperson while he’s trying to order “Beavis and Butthead” DVDs?
Best Buy sells decent products very cheaply (at least a lot of stuff). In order to do this, they sell other products (namely Service Plans) at a huge markup. Enough idiots buy the service plans at a huge markup that enable BestBuy to keep the margins on the stuff you want to buy low.
So, the cost for spending $79 on a DVD player that Bestbuy’s cost on is $82 is saying no to the service plan - maybe three or four times. You can make this a pleasant experience, or you can make it unpleasant.
You can not take the time to do this, and go somewhere else. That’s your perogative. If you buy over the web, you won’t be inconvienced in this manner (but you will need to pay for shipping - and wait for your product). If you buy at Target or Wal-Mart, you will get the same price (and pretty much the same service) but a much smaller selection of DVD players to choose from. You can go to Circuit City, pay $2 more for the same DVD player, and still need to say no to the service plan pitch three times.
As far as “taking your business somewhere else” BestBuy doesn’t really care about losing the business of the percentage of customers on which they take a loss on. Which may be you anyway.
I am not sure about other people, but I have been a Best Buy shopper for years and I have never once been hassled about a service plan. Sure, I am often offered the plan, but a simple “I read the booklet and I am not interested” always worked.
Also, I worked for Best Buy many moons ago and to me a lot of the problem with the PSP’s is that the company makes the salesperson believe that it is a great deal. Culture training is what they called it, brainwashing is more like it. A lot of the salespeople think they are doing you a favor buy offering it to you and cannot understand why you would turn down such a great deal. And some are just assholes.
Final note. I once bought a 6 disk CD changer from best buy and also bought the PSP along with it (mainly because I was an employee at the time and the plan ran me about $4). I used the plan 3 times within 2 years. Twice the problem was fixed within about a week and the third time they just gave me a new one. They also replaced the 6 CD’s I had in the player at the time I had to send it off to get fixed. I know they are all mostly just pure profit for the company, but it worked for me.
One more thing (I know, I said the last note was the final note) let us not forget that the plans are almost pure profit for the company and believe it or not, companies are in business in order to turn a profit. They are not there to offer some sort of service to the community, they are there to make money. They do not do things on a whim, they are all researched and tested and damn-near perfected before they are ever implemented on a national level. At some point the PSP’s HAVE to work for the companies or they would have stopped selling them years ago. And, as long as they work, they will keep selling them. They will not stop just because you don’t like the pitch. You know you’re going to be pressured to buy them before you go into the store. If you don’t want to be, don’t go into the store, that simple. Do not bitch at the store manager, or even the district manager, they are all just doing their job. I know a lot of you don’t see that as an excuse, but I am sure there are a lot of people out their that do jobs that someone doesn’t like. It is all about the bottom line of putting food on your table. Just relax and say no.
So the lesson we’ve all learned, folks, is that customers should just shut up and take whatever we decide to cram at you, because we’re just doing our job.
LiquidChaos: I have no problem saying no. What I object to is having to say no to the same pitch half a dozen times. If enough people complain to the managers and shop elsewhere, then they will stop badgering the customers and accept a simple “No.” the first time.
You’re assuming that the person is turning their nose up at a “service plan” for a product that is a loss-leader.
By far, most products big-box stores sell are not at a loss. Actually, very, very few of them are. Usually, those are the “Saturday Door-Crasher” or equivilent items.
Even so, they flog the service plan on products that they are making a profit on just as hard.
Actually, Johnny L.A. they won’t. BestBuy is using this as a method to weed out the customers on which they lose money. They don’t really want the business of the guy who buys their loss leaders and not enough other stuff to make up the difference. They’ll take one guy that buys the service plan over ten guys that don’t - and they’ll come out ahead in the end.
They’d LOVE to see people on whom they take a loss move over to Circuit City or Wal-Mart - move the loss to their competators.
FWIW he wasn’t juat doing his job, he was being an asshat, and I agree whole-heartedly with the OP.
Sales people in jobs like this are under pressure to get these things out the door. I know because i’ve had two jobs identical to Best Buy. For one they usually get a nice spiff on the “extra special super saver warranty” plan, also depending on where they work if they dont sell enough each month or quarter, they lose their job or get taken off sales and put on like register-jockey duty.
But trying to cram the damn thing down your throat under the guise of it being “just your job” is total bullshit, and the mark of an inexperienced or just plain bad salesman. A real Salesperson knows who they can finagle into one of those, and who they should just let it drop.
They sure as hell aren’t selling iPods at any loss. both apple.com and macconnection.com sell them for the exact same price. SO the “loss leader” theory doesn’t hold up at least not in this case. True, I would have had to wait a couple of days for the product to be delivered and paid shipping but I wouldn’t have had to pay sales tax so that would have been a wash, and I didn’t need to have it that day. The only reason I went to a store was because I needed to pick up some floppies and Best Buy was on the way to the gym.
I see that as a poor analogy. Now, if said Service Sector Drones actually grabbed my arm and dragged me over to see a certain display, then yes, I would call that unacceptable.
I guess I’m just not getting it. I’ve never had an employee ask me more than once if I wanted a service plan or some other little upgrade. I’ve never had to say “No thanks” more than once. I’ve never been “accosted” as described in this thread. Maybe I just lead a charmed life.
Or maybe said Service Sector Drones automatically zone in on the most annoyable people…
OP: I am angry that a Best Buy employee asked me the same question several times.
SPOOFE: Don’t get angry, he’s just doing his job.
(many replies later)
SPOOFE: I don’t understand. I’ve never been asked more than once.
So in other words, you’re not even responding to the OP, are you SPOOFE? I gather that, had the employee asked once, Otto said No, and the employee stopped, this thread wouldn’t be here. The point is that the employee persisted. Other people came in and said that yes, that behavior was annoying and rude. Other people also gave stories of being harangued multiple times about service plans. You, however, have never had that experience. So why are you commenting on it and telling people it’s not bad?
Or are you saying that, even if you had encountered a situation where the employee asked you multiple times if you want to buy something you already said multiple times you didn’t want, you still wouldn’t think the employee was being annoying?
I had a Best Buy employee (his name was Scott and he worked at the BB on Mayfair Road in Wauwatosa, Wisconsin) actually call me stupid because I wouldn’t take the $39 service contract on a printer that was costing me $59 after rebates.
I ended up getting that printer for $15 because of the fuss I made to the manager!
We, the public, have CREATED this kind of store by “voting with our feet.” “Idiot managers” work from one independent directive, MAKE A PROFIT. The entire rest of the equation comes from the public.
There have been many local businesses who have offered good products for sale, with good support, de facto “extended warranties” at their own expense, but these places have trouble competing with the bait-and-add-on business model, because we, the public, are so short-sighted in shopping by price alone.
Exactly why we, as consumers, need to stop letting them get away with it. If the “business model” is to try to intimidate customers, then it becomes even more important to refuse to accept such tactics.
See, the reason they keep asking is because you’re just saying no. If you scream “No, I don’t want your damn service plan because I’m not a complete moron” at the top of your lungs, I bet they’d stop right quick.
Sadly, I’ve never had the chance to test my theory. For some reason, when I go to places like this, I never get the hard sell. If I could package and sell the scowl I wear in public, I’d be a millionaire overnight.
I’d echo Tars’ remark on this issue. The small local stores don’t hassle you so much, because they realize that polite service is about all they have going for them. If Circuit City is putting out bad service, I’m sure the guys at Columbia Photo & Electronics would be glad to pick up their business and be 10 times as polite. It’s all about the work atmosphere. At a small shop where the employees feel more important, they know the owner, they’re more likely not to see their job as just a doompit prison they have to spend 1/3 of their life at. At the big chain stores, the salesmen are just treated as cogs in the machine, faceless numbers on the page in some payroll book, so of course they’re miserable and unmotivated and will treat every function of their job as just something they’re being forced to do. At a smaller shop there’s a little more personal pride, because the employee is comparatively more important to the business (Circuit City can lay off 40 people like it’s nothing, small local owned business may not even employ that many people to begin with.)
