Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[Wilsokm1]

Here's what's sad here, due to Best Buy's competitive prices, and overall availability of electronics, etc., the consumers, regardless of the negative experiences they may read about on these boards, will continue to remain loyal until they too experience the disappointment and realization that Best He's customer service, and customer loyalty has fallen short of their expectations. Before my negative experience, I wouldn't have gone anywhere else for electronics or other major purchases. After my experience with this company's blatant incompetence, and lack of knowledge or concern for my issue, I will not be a returning customer. For those of you advocating for this company, its only a matter of time before you too have an experience like myself, or like musicmansell, or the hundreds of others who've posted on this site, or other sites for that matter! Eventually, the poor customer service will catch up, as I can't imagine anyone being naive enough to continue to give a company who has absolutely no regard for their customers, their business. Fool me once, shame on you, fool me twice, shame on me. I certainly won't be signing up for this kind of disappointment again.

[Jimmienomam]

I pull the three strikes rule on most places. I have experienced bad service from BBY a few times, but after getting in contact with the proper people they made it better. Granted learning how to get in contact with the right people the first time was a massive pain, but these boards make it easy if you're willing to be patient.

I don't exclusively shop at BBY, but I do give them basically first rights.

[atruautotech]

What is your expectation of good customer service? People who say "BBY employees know nothing" and "BBY customer service is horrible" do you shop on Amazon then? or Wal-Mart? Last time I checked there is no help at Amazon so is that the customer service you expect to recieve in a real store? No one will greet you we'll just have a couple other customers standing aroud the product you're interested in one will say it was awesome and give it 5 stars and one say it was crap and give it 1 star then you can decide your purchase on that. Or we can pay people minimum wage to know absolutely nothing about the product because they don't even own it. They're just there to get a paycheck. Or we can train our employees to do the best job at customer service at all times and you accept that somtimes you might get a bad experience or two. Nothing in this world is perfect and if you're going to tell me you never messed up a job then maybe you should put in an application to work for BBY.

[Jimmienomam]

Btw in an interview yesterday Mr. Dunn acknowledges the lack of training and said by 2015 the training budget will be increased by at least 40%.

I know BBY isn't anywhere close to what they should/could be, but at least they are listening.

[Wilsokm1]

That's all we can hope for is that acknowledge the problem, and attempt to address it. Simple mistakes are bound to happen, as you're correct, its not a perfect world, however, in my situation alone I personally experienced blatant neglect, and never received resolution to my issue, which was paying for a product that I NEVER RECEIVED. There's no excuse for it, and I certainly have no tolerance for the runaround I received from all parties I spoke with over the phone. As far as Amazon and Walmart, the small purchases I've made through Amazon (I wouldn't dream of making a large purchase through Amazon), I've never had a problem. In fact, I've been extremely impressed with how smoothly my returns have gone. The have always gone how they should have gone, and I've never had to attempt to contact anyone there. As far as Walmart goes, I have felt like Ive been stuck in a time warp every time I've shopped there. Its never been a quick trip, and the hours I've wasted are so not worth the savings. How is any of this relevant to this? Its not. Best Buy has a serious issue on their hands, period. The fact that Amazon and Walmart have their own problems doesn't make this any less of an issue!

[Jimmienomam]

I think AMZ and Walmart got brought up to show the grass is not always greener on the other side, but you are correct a company shouldn't leverage customers in by taking the stance that no competitor is better.

But then you have to also judge a company by its piers. So both points may be valid, but I hope for the first one much more than the latter.

[atruautotech]

It is exactly the fact that the grass is not greener. There is no excuse for poor customer service I agree, but you can not leverage one individual against an entire company. There are bad seeds everywhere. I've interviewed amazing candidates for jobs and then when they actually work they are horrible employees. Just curious have you ever worked in a true retail setting such as this?

On top of that your original post said you got a confirmation email and I'm assuming you use online banking which means you would show a charge from BBY for the exact amount it would have cost you for the software. You spoke to people on the phone? So did you actually go into the store and present the confirmation email and the charge to your card? I've seen far less get the approval from a manager without blinking an eye.

[Wilsokm1]

Yes, I would think any major business would certainly want to be better than any competitor out there, and develop a strong customer base, because they're simply the best, not gain consumers by default just because the competitors are lacking in certain areas. Customer service should be top priory, no matter what. I feel like Ive been duped, and once that happened, the trust and the confidence that I once had in Best Buy diminished. To answer your question from above, not sure if it was addressed to me or not, but what I expect from customer service is, 1. If I'm passed around from person to person to find the appropriate individual, and I've explained my situation over and over, and finally ask to speak to a manager because I am not happy with what I'm being told, the manger, before getting on the phone with me, should have done her job (as there is a reason why she was asked to take the call) and she should have gotten the background first if she didn't, which I'm sure she did, and instead of jumping on the phone and saying "This is ---- how can I help you", start out the conversation by first stating her name and second saying something like "I understand you are having a problem with..." I instantly questioned her competence when she neglected to directly address the issue, and expected me to repeat my issue AGAIN. 2. When I'm told I'm going to hear back from someone in five to ten days, so they can investigate the issue, than I should hear back from someone in five to ten days. Instead I had to call fifteen days later, finally got to the appropriate area, and was asked to call back in two to three hours because the system was down. Meanwhile...Best Buy still had my money...and I still had received no product.

[Mbrguy Emerging Expert]

When I was working at Best Buy, even if I had notes on the issue, I'd ask the client to explain because it is better coming from the customer than just reading notes.  Notes never seem to catch everything and I'd rather know what the customer said directly than to take my chances and hope that the person who took the notes didn't miss anything important or that the note taker didn't think one aspect was important when the customer would have felt that that aspect was the most important of all.  

All in all, this  is starting to feel like you're just nit-picking now.