Feel free to share any experieces you've had with best buy here. This can be a great place to share your frustration, or if your one of the lucky ones, your good experiences.

Lets see, where to start:

Front-end (before purchase) - They generally ignore me completely in favor of going after the older and more clueless looking customers, which is usually fine with me, as the most complicated question I generally want to ask is where are the x? When they do actually pay attention to me, and I happen to have a question, even one as simple as the above, they tend to stare at me in ignorance or point in a general direction and say "Over There". Classic example: "Do you have hardware (as is non-win) modems?" response: "Sir, all modems are hardware". Me: "See ya!" I have also had several price matching arguments with them, since they don't seem to really want to honor that.

After the purchase, I have not had too much experience. I got a head-unit for my car installed there (free as part of a promotion), and could have done a better job myself. Generally, on defective returns, its no problem. I don't get the PSP there, ever, (see below). I have however had some dealings with GS for various reasons (generally cleaning up their mistakes), and they tend to be either incompetent, or in some cases do more harm then good.

As for bigger items such as our HDTV or video camera, I have long since stopped buying from BB, since I refuse to give large business to a company whose employees routinely ignore me because most people my age can't afford the more expensive items.

I must look like an older and more clueless looking customer because I generally don't have a problem finding a sales person. On the other hand, their digital camera selection is really poor. I was just in a BB and checking out cameras and could find either the Panosonic FZ 7 or 8 or a Fuji S6000

Well, obviously, thats a generalization, but I have found it to be true that over the last 10 years, the older I get, the more attention they "try" to pay to me. I understand demographics and all that, but when I am the ONLY person in the section, and three employees are standing around BSing while occasionally glancing my way, thats just sh!tty service.

This has happened to me at several stores in very different geographical ares. But then, maybe I just put off an unapproachable vibe...

Any body who complains about BestBuy's service is an ignorant fool. Best Buy has made it's success on selling the best products at the lowest prices. Customer service is a distant third behind those two, in large part to save money so they can afford the first two. Most employees are part time, low paid and not on commision, basically meaning they don't give a frick about you or what you buy. But guess what; that's what you people want. Lower prices at the expense of customer service. If customer's had the choice between a 10% price cut or a 100% improvement in customer service, they'd take the price cut. Computers are a perfect example. Every week Best Buy offers dirt cheap Desktops and Laptops and people line up outside the store for them(by the way I work at Best Buy and love it When the doors open they run up and demand the POS system on the front of the ad, completely ignoring the sales person trying to upsell them to another more expensive (albiet better) model. This is the usual Sunday scene where I work. The rest of the week is then filled with angry customers complaining "Nobody told me this $300 computer wouldn't play the latest games". Well WTF did you expect? Do you think we sell $1000 systems just to rip people off because the $300 ones will do the same thing? Believe it or not but I've actually been told this by more then one customer. As far as PSPs, Best Buy hardly even has to try and sell them. Most customers who buy them actually ASK for them. And if you're not a moron you can actually benifit off them. iPods are a great example. It would be immoral to sell those pieces of shit without offering a PSP for it. Anything with a rechargeable battery is also worthwhile to get a PSP on since it will pay for itself plus you'll have extra protection. Then you have accidental damage coverage. You break it and Best Buy repair it for you even when it's completely obvious it's your fault. Of course most people get pissed about PSPs. If you're using one it's because your shit is broke and if you don't then you wasted your money. Also most problems are user error and Best Buy can't fix stupid (or at least it's not covered under PSPs). Even when an item is fixed under PSP and returned to the customer in a timely fashion (which occurs more times then not), nobody is ever really happy about it. Also realize that Best Buy honors ALL manufactuers warrenties for any item sold by Best Buy, even if it was purchased from a competitor. But most importantly realize that Best Buy is a business out to make money, it's not a friggen charity.

Jaded much?

First off, BB DOESN'T sell the best products, they sell mainstream products that most people know about or want, bet that are rarely the best available.

Second off, BB DOESN'T have the lowest prices either. I can buy just about anything they sell somewhere else for cheaper, and not just from online retailers either. (Wal-Mart, for example, but they are FAR worse than BB. Don't get me started there).

As for the employees being underpaid and not caring, we already knew that, its part of the problem, as is their general lack of knowledge (I don't know you and can't comment on you, just my experience). We also could already tell you worked there without you telling us.

I also highly doubt people line up outside the store on a weekly basis just to but the advertised POS of the week. Maybe at your store, but certainly not nationwide.If they did, BB would be a much bigger company.

I don't know where you get that BB doesn't have to try to sell their PSPs. EVERY time I am in there, they are either trying to upsell one to me when I buy something, or I hear them pushing it on someone else. And they RARELY pay for themselves, thats the whole point. They are insurance plans, if they always paid for themselves, there would be no money to be made on them, and they wouldn't be offered.

Lastly, BB honoring ALL of their manufacturers' warranties is nothing special They are merely acting as a middleman, and ultimately, its the original manufacturer that is honoring the warranty and reimbursing BB for the returned item.

Believe it or not, I am NOT a BestBuy hater. They are no better or worse than any other big box store. The problem is ALL big box stores have these same practices, policies, and general lack of customer service. It just so happens that this topic is tailored to BB. I could pass along CC or CompUSA stories as well....

No Im not jaded (infact I've hated or disliked most companies I've worked for). The best product for the best price statement was not meant to be taken to the extreme literals, yet simply to show Best Buy's business philosophy. Yes there are better products out there, but you'll pay an extreme premium. And yes there are better prices, but for extremely crapping products. The OP of this thread even admits that Best Buy's price's can't be beat for the quality of product(see here).

See here's the problem. People like you expect everybody who works at Best Buy to have a degree in computer science (like myself 8) ). But the truth is if Best Buy only hired people as knowledgeable as you or me there would be hardly anybody to work there. To expect some 20 year old college student to know what a win-modem is and how it differs from a hard-modem is ridiculaus. You say it's 'part of the problem' when in fact it's exactly how the business is set up to run; Lower cost as much as possible and pass the savings on to the customer. And what's the most flexible cost in running a business? LABOR!!! It's also contridictiary to say that employees don't care, but that you always hear/see them pushing and selling PSPs so hard. So which is it? You see that's exactly what I was saying about the Sunday morning POS shoppers. They dont want to hear what the salesperson is selling, but then accuse us of not doing our jobs when things don't go your way.
Your right that PSPs don't usually pay for themselves, and thats why Best Buy sells them, to make money. However in the cases I pointed out they usually do pay for themselves if the customer actually takes advantage of them.

Well it's true. I'm not sure as to how big or small you think Best Buy is, but I believe it is the world's largest electronics retail chain, so I guess that's pretty big and kind of hard to be bigger. But yes there are tons of people nation wide who will buy crap just because it's cheap. That's the real problem. It's not the big box stores, it's the Wal-Mart Nation mentality that is running so rampent amongst consumers today.



ps: I just realized this was my 100th post and gets my logo up. So sad it comes with me talking about my job :?

I understand where you are coming from, and you are coming across a bit more clearly now. Though, when I said best price, I meant on equal items, but thats really neither here nor there.

As for the labor, I don't expect everyone to be a CS student or Grad (FYI, the person who didn't know about the win modem WAS a fellow CS student at my school), especially not for the wages they pay, but I DO expect them to have at least a basic understanding of what they are selling.

As for the PSPs, I have heard from numerous sources, including current and past BB employees, that there are incentives for selling them, and that they are basically sold on commission (just the PSPs). Is that not true? If it is, then it would render caring about your job or not pointless in relation to their sales.

As for the size of BB, I know how big it is, but it is not ubiquitous (IE, Wal-Mart or MS), and still has room to grow. The point I was trying to make is that if lining up outside was a common occurrence nationwide, they would be even bigger than they are. No matter how big you are, there is always room to grow.

As for people lining up outside, if you say its so then it must be. There is certainly no explaining the stupidity of some people...

And please, please, please don't get me started on Wal-mart, which is one of the worst things to ever happen to America.

I'm glad we can come to some sort of an understanding. Just to make it clear though, as far as I know there's never been any sort of incentive towards selling PSPs, other then the occasional "Good JOB!". The fact is that while extended waranties will always carry a huge margian no matter who's selling them, right now Best Buy as a company is much more focused on other areas and the idea towards PSPs is offer them, explain the benifits, but for the most part they will sell themselves. Basically meaning that there's a portion of the population out there that genuinly wants a warrenty and will buy them. The scene from Tommy Boy about garunteed crap in a box pretty much sums that up. As far as how Best Buy honors PSPs and warranties, I really believe it's done right. I actually work on the Geek Squad so I deal with these things all day and can honestly say Best Buy isn't trying to cheat anybody. For a company that size it's just not worth it. However like I've already pointed out Best Buy is a business and it's only real purpose is to earn money. So no, it's not going to give out replacements to every person who isn't 100% satisfied, and yes this will sometimes lead to some people not getting what they maybe should. For the most part however things are done right. I can only speak for the store I work at, but I can honestly say I've seen far, far, far more customers get much more then they should have then I've seen people get less (that is less then they deserve, not less then what they want). Just yesterday I saw a guy get free RAM and install for no good reason. His system which was under PSP had 512MB Dual Chanel RAM(2x256MB). He decided to just through in another 512MB (1 module) on his own to get 1GB. Well that didn't exactly work (because the memory was mismatched) so he brought it in to be serviced under his PSP. I suggested he buy another 512 to match the stick he installed and have us install it, but for a charge. He pays, his system works great and he goes home happy. That is until his wife finds out he paid $120 for the RAM and install. So they come back in and complain until my manager agrees to refund the RAM and install. However since taking the RAM out would mess up the system due to the RAM he'd installed on his own we leave it in even though we returned it and give him his money back. So he got $120 worth of product and services for free which pays for most of the $150 he paid for the PSP, not to mention that every problem he had with the computer was his own fault and his PSP and manufactuers warranty could have been considered voided for several reasons.

I never said users/consumers weren't greedy, ignorant idiots...

I honestly don't really care if the sales people can answer my questions or not, I do my research online before ever going to a store to look at it. (I like to actually see the product I buy before I purchase it online... call me old fashioned). But I had to share a quick story,

I set up my girlfriend with an old computer of mine, but I didn't have a monitor for it. So I figured I would find some cheap-o CRT 15 or 17" for as cheap as possible. I went to Comp USA, and they had NO crt's...

next to BB. I asked the sales person "Do you have any cheap CRT's?"(I will grant you, she was probably an 18 year old girl who was in the wrong place at the wrong time) Her reply was "Whats a CRT?" I thought... ok, no big deal, I will put it in simpler terms. "You know... the computer monitors that look like old television sets?" She says "Ohhhh, ok... follow me" Then she led me to the 13" Television isle. So to just make it more painless, I said thanks and pretended to look around there for a few seconds, and then meandered around and found the CRT's after a little bit.

Like purplerat said, I realize that customer service is cut to allow better deals... but when I was a telemarketer, they made us know a tiny bit about the product we were selling (The less we knew the better about some of that crap... don't get me started on the ABROLLER!!!, and don't forget about credit cards with a 30% interest rate - seriously) Oh well... life goes on.

Actually Purple IS right- people line up every Sunday to run in and get the crappy stuff and when they are like I want to play games and I'm like well this one won't play those- and you need a dedicated video card- it's a lost cause. Many customers DO ask us about service plans in the form of "So what warranty comes on this and what do you offer". There is margin in PSP's, but not as much as you may think when all is said and done. Best Buy is more focused on services and such now. There isnt much margin in Products, if any- so Its more "what can we do for you" than just "what product can we sell you". Customers appreciate that as many of them know that they want something but arent sure how to set it up/ get it working the way they want. Many customers arent interested in learning how to do this themselves as they don't have the desire and/or time, but we do offer training also. As far as the knowledge, I work with a few idiots, but they come to me with "difficult" questions. I know about computers, and I know about all of our products, and I know how to sell and how to make my customers happy. I have found very few customers who know more about computers than me, and I enjoy talking to them and having an intelligent conversation. Most people in my department are in college and some even in computer fields. Many are my friends outside of work also and it's a really good place to work. There is low stress and when customers aren't around we are encouraged to get to know each other and just hang out. The discount is also great. I still shop at newegg but between the two my technology is very affordable. I think many people who would be on these forums may have a different outlook on technology than a lot of my customers. Some do their research, some rely on us to educate them, but what is always true in the end is that customers only buy what they want to. I don't think that buying a psp on something like a laptop is stupid by any means. As for Best Buy not being a "big" company or whatever Eric is saying- you gotta be kidding me right? Circuit City and Compusa aren't really competition. You want to talk about a scam- how about those mail in rebates that Best Buy, unlike other retailers, eliminated? So all the other stores and online retailers that have mail in rebates- thats one thing that Best Buy has on them. Lots of my tech savvy customers find great weekly deals on stuff that they cant get online for that cheap.

Good to see I have some backup here Seriously though Uscooper validates to points I was trying to make. For one customers create many of their own problems, then expect under paid part time employees to fix them. Also "What can we do for you?" says it perfectly. Best Buy's focus on services is a great benifit to it's customers while carring a huge margin for the company(far higher then PSPs). And not only do the services themselves help the customer, but they also make PSPs more valuable to the customer. Why? Because you can actually get help in store or in home with your PSP. Sure a lot of things still get sent out, but having Techs(like me in store makes a huge difference. Perfect example was just a couple days ago when a woman brought in her camera that wasn't working to be repaired under PSP. I opened the battery compartment see 2AA alkaline batteries, replace them with NiHMs and voila the camera works. I tell her to buy 1.3v (NiHM or Litium) not 1.5v batteries and save her 3 weeks without her camera. Same thing with somebody with a computer with a bad PSU or laptop with a bad charger/battery. Not only are there products covered but they get them back much quicker then if they sent it to the manufactuer for repair. The same also goes for products purchased at Best Buy that don't have PSPs but are under warrenty. Thats what I was eluding to when I previously said that Best Buy covers manufactures warranties. For the most part Best Buy's PSPs and Services are much better for customers then if they had nothing at all.