Other Customer Service Support

[chinarut]

Hi!  We recently purchased a HP LaserJet Pro m29w and while we are not disatisfied with the printer, after about 3 weeks, we started to realize this model was not a perfect fit for our household so we are not completely satisfied.  We looked at other HP models and feel the HP LaserJet Pro m148fdw with duplex printing, an auto-document scanner, scan-to-email, and wired ethernet would be a much better fit. These are features we did not anticipate when we made our intial purchase. It honestly took 21 days of daily evaluation to realize what we felt our printer was missing.

So needless to say, we were disappointed, due to your 15 day return policy, we could not simply drive back to our Best Buy store, exchange printers (or make a return and make a new order online), and pay the additional $60 to get a printer we would be happier with.

This experience has us conclude that your 15 day return policy is not sufficient time to thoroughly evaluate feature-rich multi-fuction products such as a LaserJet Pro MFP.  This is not the first time your customers have shared their sentiments about your 15 day return policy.

We've recently started to experiment with buying larger electronics from Amazon and shocked the difference an extra 2 weeks makes - we feel quite confident by the end of 30 days we've made a sound decision and often keep products that at 15 days would have returned. 30 days provides a lot of time to waffle back & forth between pros and cons and make a final decision.

We are aware you offer a 30 day policy with My Best Buy Elite provided one makes $1500 in purchases per calendar year. We totally respect you are a different company than Amazon with a different business model. We just want to note that nobody is required to be a paid (ie. Prime) member to receive the benefit of a 30 day return policy.

We sincerely hope you reconsider the length of your return window period as the net result is we are moving our business to Amazon to ensure we have 30 days to evaluate our purchases and not risk getting stuck being partially satisfied with a large purchase again. It is unfortunate the negative experience of feeling pressured and rushed to evaluate a product is associated with Best Buy right now.

[hockeycanuckjc Community Veteran · Accepted solution]

Some stores make exceptions to the return policy but this is up to the management and their word is final if you can't get a store credit toward your item.

Unfortunately the rules are in place for a reason and honestly, I don't see this changing anytime soon. Yes, with other places and the return policy you don't have to be a member and you get a longer return period.

Best Buy has a lot of information online for product reviews and customer opinions. Beyond this, there is a wealth of information on pros and cons of the device you are wanting to purchase prior to making the actual transaction. 

Also, Best Buy often offers free shipping often quickly with a minium purchase, and there is no cost for this extra little perk. The other competitors, you're lucky if you get it in 2 days or less.

[chinarut]

thank you @hockeycanuckjc for taking the time to respond to my message and sharing your thoughts.

I was told Best Buy corporate reviews questions on these forums so if you are able to ensure this feedback is forwarded to the right people, we would appreciate it.

> Some stores make exceptions to the return policy but this is up to the management and their word is final if you can't get a store credit toward your item.

This is a great idea - we never thought to talk to the store manager directly.  I will print out my letter above and drop by our local store and inquire.

> Best Buy has a lot of information online for product reviews and customer opinions. Beyond this, there is a wealth of information on pros and cons of the device you are wanting to purchase prior to making the actual transaction. 

Yes, we do our research online both on the BestBuy.com site, YouTube videos, and other indepedent reviewers.

My point in my original letter is there are some things one may not learn until day 15 through 30 of using the product - which is the circumstance we ran into thus concluding 30 days is an optimal evaluation period and request to adopt this length of period.

[hockeycanuckjc Community Veteran]

Yes they do review these boards. But als know it is a public forum where the community can interact and chime in here as well

I am very savvy about my test but end the end of the day lots of research exausts me and sometimes I want to have it in my hand hopefully for a long time.

[chinarut · Accepted solution]

Thank you @hockeycanuckjc for the suggestion to speak to our local store manager!

I thought I'd take the time to close the loop and share our experience.

We did some extra research before walking back in and settled we would commit to invest a hefty $130 premum (~2x the price of the m29w) for features we wanted and went in prepared to buy the Canon MF269dw ($269 at the time)

Our manager was extremely understanding and made an exception to take and exchange our HP m29w and explained Best Buy's policy is to extend return windows for those who have a significant amount of total purchases annually (eg. $1500 with Best Buy elite). While I feel Amazon's policy is more flexible with no minimum, I wasn't going to make this an issue moving forward and appreciated the gesture.

One of the local associates was willing to listen to all the research I had done and the challenges I encountered sorting through printers.  He noticed a Canon MF642Cdw was $80 off (thus matching our exact budget) and asked if I wanted to throw color in for free. I was definitely skeptical "there's no free lunch" and after spending extra time going through the comparison charts together while in the store and doing some additional research on this printer I had not considered, we decided to move forward with it.

It was a few days later while waiting for the printer to ship we realized we somehow overlooked this unit offered color printing by not supporting duplex scanning. We decided not to make this an issue as we figured we'd be able to manually duplex scan given our relatively low volume of duplex material.

At the end of the day, the MF642Cdw ended up having several dealbreakers and frankly, we were left quite disappointed by a reputable company like Canon. There were so many quirks and nuances not mentioned in store or through critic or consumer reviews (both on bestbuy.com and off).

So fortunately, we had the option to exchange (again) to a Brother HL-L2395DW which is an excellent MFP.  Brother makes a point to serve a market of people who (1) wish to save $50-80 not getting a duplex scanner and simply ask "do you have more pages to scan?" and (2) want to upload their scans directly to the cloud without a desktop computer attached.  Best of all, instead of $269, we came in at $169, only $30 above the price of the $139 M29w!

So kudos to Brother for considering the user experience more deeply at amazing price points and kudos again to the local store manager for ensuring we are ultimately satisfied with our Best Buy purchase and feel we have a printer that will serve us for years to come.

Based on this experience, my current feedback to Best Buy Corporate is to give customers an opportunity evaluate printers/MFPs in your store thoroughly. I think this is the true value of the brick & mortar. Yes, this requires the use of consumables like ink & paper and the capacity to let different kinds of devices to connect.  Given I imagine there is a relatively high cost of returning and exchanging products like printers (it's much different than returning a laptop with no consumables), I can only imagine such a process to be cost-effective and help customers short-circuit the process by literally comparing the user experience printing, scanning, copying, uploading, etc across 10 printers/MFPs at once!

[Allison-BBY Social Media Specialist]

Hello, chinarut!

Thanks for posting on our forum. Purchasing an item such a printer is a big deal, as it's important this device does exactly what you'd like it to. I'm glad to see that hockeycanuckjc was able to step in before I reached your posts to provide insight into our Return and Exchange Policy and a bit of guidance on the matter. I'm also thrilled to learn that you ended up with a printer you're satisfied with, and I'd like to offer any support you may still need now.

I'd like to begin by formally documenting your feedback in our corporate system. Please send me a private message including your full name, email, and phone number, and include any further assistance you may be looking for now with your experience and purchase. You can find the blue option to message me to the right of my name below.

All the best,

[chinarut]

Hi Allison!  I am very pleased to see your follow up - thank you!  I will follow up with a PM with the requested information.

After sleeping on this, what I would love to see is a more comprehensive in-store evaluation experience that would allow customers to quickly narrow down their chioces.

phase 1 - comprehesive in-store evaluation

I envision customers using an initial period of time (say 2-3 weeks) to narrow down their choices based on actual experience printing, copying, faxing, scanning, uploading to in-store computers/servers, etc.  They are likely to go back home and do further research in an iterative manner and may return the store multiple times to try out different makes and models based on what they learn through additional reserach and trial & error.

phase 2 - in home/office evaluation

Then with some level of confidence, the customer could purchase a unit and focus these 15 days to focus on evaluating the fit in their home/office environment.  A 15 day return period can work as basic features across a large # of products have already been evaluated in-store with the support of the local team in phase 1.

Best Buy might even consider charge for such a service (to cover time & materials and prevent people from abusing the service) where the fee is reimbursed with a confirmed final purchase of a printer from Best Buy that makes it past the return window.

I'm sure there are many ways of creating a hybrid evaluation model and I'll be sure to pass this forum thread to our store manager and thank him again for his time & support.

Thanks again @Allison-BBY for listening to our feedback and passing it on.

[Alyssa-BBY Retired: Social Media Specialist]

Hello, chinarut,
 

As Allison is unavailable, I was wanting to step in to let you know that I've located your private message and replied there. With that said, I was wanting to invite you to share your ideas on IdeaX as well, if you haven't done so already. 
 

Thank you again for sharing your feedback with us!
 

Best Regards,