Best Buy Store Purchase

[Mcbillman]

   I am only commenting as a long time Best Buy loving customer. You, as a company, have lost your way. We're all happy that Corie Barrie made between $40- $70 (?) million last year, but I fear for the long term effects her greed will have on the company as a whole.

   Today I went into a store on Blakeney Rd. In Charlotte NC and had the WORST sales experience. There were a total of about 5 people working in the whole store. When I went to check out, I was told I needed to pay at the Customer Service desk. I looked to see a line of 4 people ahead of me waiting while the rep was dealing with I would call the usual scammer tv returners (no receipt/ wrong box/ old tv, etc). There was no one else around to help the people who were still willing to pay for the product we wanted to give you money for. Finally a manager came over and helped with the paying customers while the rep was still dealing with the tv scammers. After I paid I spoke with the manager who checked me out and told him I wasn't complaining but just wanted to let him know the general public's opinion of what Corie Barrie has done to this once fine company.

   After seeing you guys almost go out of business about 8-10 years ago, I'm happy to see you guys are thriving now, but I hope Ms. Barrie sees the big picture of what her short sighted decisions are doing to the company. After possibly the worst year in human history, it was HER decision to fire half the company and then make the other half do more jobs each day. Then she outsourced some services to 3rd party companies. This is not how you keep your internal customers happy. If you can't make your employees happy, they won't make your paying customers happy. That is how I feel today. I did not leave your store feeling happy about my purchase. 
   COVID will end someday soon and people will be craving any opportunity to actually go out and interact with people and go into physical stores and shop. They may want to ask some questions and talk to sales people. I fear that Best Buy will not be able to provide this service in a timely manner. I fear Ms. Barrie is not looking at the long term picture and that, once the world reopens, your company will not be able to meet the demands. If I want to be ignored and made to wait for the simple purchases I CHOOSE to make in one of your stores, then I might CHOOSE to buy it off Amazon and have it delivered to me at home. I understand that right now, your "metrics" are telling you this is what the customer prefers, I can assure you that those metrics will change once people have more options. And from what I saw today, your company will not be ready, thus relating the issues that almost cost you the company to Amazon a few years ago. 
   To Ms. Barrie I will say this: The company is NOT doing great now because of YOU or your leadership. The company is doing great right now because we have a worldwide pandemic and people don't have a lot of choice when it comes to shopping. Once the world is back to a new version of normal, we will see what kind of leader you really are. Based on some of your recent decisions, I do not feel you have the skills to move the bar without relying on the crutch that COVID has given you. YOU have publicly shown how little you care about your employees. If you need a reminder, THEY are the ones who made YOU the $70 million last year. Did you share any of that with them for risking their lives every day for a tv or a set of headphones? No. You fired half of them so you could make yourself more money. If your conscience is ok with that then who am I to judge? Maybe the employee with the family who no longer has a job or a means to support their family because of YOUR decisions would be more suited for that than me. 

   I will strongly think about where I will choose to spend my money in the future once my options open up. I'm sure there are many thousands of people nationwide who may be thinking the same thing. While you are thinking up ways to spend your bloated compensation package for 2020-21, please try to project out the long term impacts of YOUR short term decisions. 
   And also please reconsider keeping the physical media section for movies in your stores. Some people, like myself, like to buy physical copies of a movie. Every time I go into my store, the movie section shrinks. Movies come out every Tuesday. I only need a new refrigerator every 20-25 years or a tv every 5 years. What do you think I would like to see on the floor when I walk in? I know movies are known as "loss leaders" but if there's nothing to get me in the store in the first place, I'm not going to be there to spend the big money. Think about it...

Thank you very much for your time. I'm just a concerned customer trying to look out for a company he has frequented for years,

Bill {removed per forum guidelines}

[Meg-BBY Social Media Specialist]

Hello, Mcbillman,

Thank you for reaching out and sharing this experience with us, and welcome to the Best Buy Forums. First, I am sorry to hear that your experience in one of our locations recently was a disappointment. We are sad to hear that you felt you did not get the assistance you needed while shopping, and we take this feedback very seriously.

We appreciate your business over the years, and I'm sad to hear that you are feeling like Best Buy has let you down recently. So that I can formally document this feedback at the corporate campus, please send me a private message with your full name, email, and phone number. 

Best,

[cleardave]

If Best Buy didn't already outsource their phone and chat Customer Support to the most lowest possible bidder of all time at the time of this post back in 2021...in the year 2023, it most certainly is now. And nothing that you described changed either.

Sorry to tell you Bill... 

[Mcbillman]

Yes you are correct on all of that. Sadly I do still go into a Best Buy near me on occasion. But overall I have taken about 90% of my business elsewhere when possible. Best Buy clearly doesn’t care one bit about customer satisfaction.
On the rare occasion that I do go into a BB I make it a point to let the manager on duty know how much I was planning on spending but tell them I will go elsewhere due to being placed in the “queue” to wait for one of the 5 people in the whole store to ignore me. I don’t make it a personal attack on the staff in store because I know they are at the mercy of the corp. office and their drive for more profits.
What BB clearly doesn’t get is that, if you take care of the people coming in the door, your profits will be there. But they never make any effort to address any of my concerns, which shows they clearly don’t care if I come back or not. So I will grant their wish and spend my money somewhere else.
Now that the world is “back to normal” Best Buy has lost a lot of ground and I fear they won’t be able to make it up. At least as long as Corie Barrie is still in charge. So I find other places to shop so that I will have my plan in place when they eventually go the way of Circuit City, Fry’s, etc.

[cleardave]

Yeah, no one at the executive level seems to care about what the "front-line" employees actually think or pass along in my opinion...just like their customer support. CEO direction for sure right...

Also, seems the Social Media Specialists mods here have a little bit more authority that their phone and chat Customer Support. However, they are also severely limited in what they can authorize. They also assure they are passing any complaints it up to leadership, however, if no one in "leadership" is listening then it does not matter at all.

Unfortunately, Best Buy was one of my last places to get my impulse electronics and videogame purchases in my hand the same day. Oh well, I guess I now have to wait 2-days with Amazon.

Finally, I am at the point in my life where I can build my Home Theater, UHD collection, Computer etc... to whatever I can justify...sad that it cannot be my childhood "dream store" where I can go as a "lifelong customer" to make my purchases sometimes...not even an option for me after this.   

[cleardave]

...just to add one hilarious fact:

In my case I was asking for $540 refunded dues to my price match scenario that I had issue with...had they given me my $540...or anything close really...I most certainly would've given that money back in profits 10-fold over the years and given my best reviews to anyone asking about Best Buy...they could've even offered around $500 in Best Buy giftcards to ensure at least most of the refund returned is returned to Best Buy's profits (a billion dollar corporation btw)

...instead they offered me a $100 giftcard because the "system" decided "no" to my request...and then Best Buy looses me as a customer for life after I spend that giftcard and any rewards left on my Best Buy card. I will also tell my story with Best Buy until my dying day whenever anyone asks my opinion...

So, in my case, Best Buy saved $440 dollars by denying my request and offering a $100 giftcard. But the loss? ...that is is higher than can be calculated easily in my opinion...higher than $440 for sure...you lost several customers for life in my estimate...the future does note bode well for Best Buy under current leadership's strategy on profits for this reason alone...again only my opinion.

[Bryant-BBY]

Cleardave, 

I have already replied on your pervious post, but I see that you have some additional new feedback. I will be happy to add this feedback to your case that I will be reporting in our corporate system.  

Thank you, 

[cleardave]

Right...does adding the feedback to my case even do anything besides take up disk storage somewhere? Were Bill's issues addressed after his feedback was added to his case two years ago?

[Bryant-BBY]

Cleardave, 

Thank you for your response.

I hope you are having a great day. 

Yes, I will be adding your feedback to my case that I will be creating and reporting your issue on today. If you have any additional feedback, please send me a private message. I can't speak on another case that I personally didn't work on. 

Thank you, 

[cleardave]

Bill replied above already...nothing was changed...