My Best Buy Experiences

[PDJ]

Hey everyone,

I don't ever post anything like this, but my experiences at Best Buy have been horrible in the past few months. I just wanted to share the email I recently wrote them. I'm not trying to start a flaming war against them, but I want them to be responsible for their actions. If and when they respond to me, I'll post their response. I told them I'm making this public. I've never done this before in my life. I understand customer service isn't perfect, but this is pretty much it for my shopping experiences with Best Buy. I modified only personal information I gave them. Keep reading if you dare...(would've been a good Halloween post haha).

"Hello,

My name is Paul ?????, please look my account up by my phone number xxx-xxx-xxxx.

Over the past few months I've grown more and more dissatisfied with Best Buy as a whole. Let me guide you through a timeline that I believe even a Best Buy employee should be able to understand:
 

• I've had two unique attempts at trying to place online preorders (one was for GTA V, another for a batch of Xbox One games) where your online interface REFUSED to let me make my purchase, simply telling me "there was an error with your order", but not TELLING me what the error was and how I could fix it. I'm simplifying things a bit as I attempted the GTA V order over 10 times before I was able to randomly have it succeed once. As for the Xbox One preorder, I couldn't get this to go through at all. I ended up having to call customer service where I spent about 25 minutes getting my order placed *slams head on desk*. Since I had 4 gift cards I was using for the order and 1 reward zone certificate, it was an extremely painful experience. After explaining MULTIPLE times that your online ordering system is apparently broken, all I ever get is a "I'm sorry for your trouble". Sorry for my trouble? Really? No one could explain to me why I was having the issue that I was having, and having these two instances take place months apart from one another, it's incredibly disappointing to see it hasn't been resolved yet. To me, this is a great example of Best Buy being aware of an issue, but not be willing to actually fix it. I understand these "glitches" may take time to fix, but come on, it's been a few months, GET YOUR ACT TOGETHER.
• There used to be a dedicated check-out for the video game section in Best Buy. From my experience, I almost ALWAYS saw someone either using that employee for: help with a question, purchasing games, or trading games in. Now that's gone, and for anyone who wants to trade games in, they get to wait in the never-ending customer service line. The last time I traded games in, I had to wait 50 minutes, FIFTY MINUTES to do a three minute transaction. I understand it gets busy at times, but why in the world is there not a separate section to trade-in games since it takes so little time to do so? At the time, I almost left because I didn't think it was worth it, but having already invested (30) minutes of my time, I stuck through for that instance. I can tell you now that I won't be trading games in ever again at Best Buy as MY TIME is incredibly valuable to me. Working full time and managing a staff on top of taking care of my house that I single-handedly own takes an incredible amount of time out of my life. I don't need Best Buy wasting my precious minutes simply because they're trying to cut corners. (P.S. the 3 other lovely women waiting in line with me that day were even more displeased than I was).
• A random, but ultimately disappointing change came with your recent return policy. Having only 15 days to return something seems ridiculous and is the lowest amount of time amongst all retailers. Why not change your price-matching policy to 15 days, and keep returns at 30? I won't even go into how my father was screwed over because he bought a present for his wife, ended up having to return it, but wasn't able to because the employee he bought it from never informed him of the 15 day return window. I don't care if it says it on the receipt, when you have this drastic of a chance, you need to verbally tell the employee of the change. This should be a practice for the next 6 months after the change has taken place. Yes, 6 months. This ensures you hit most of your market that would make purchases at Best Buy at some point during the year.
• Finally, let me get to the straw that broke the camel's back. And again, I URGE you to look up my account, you'll find all of my experiences documented under whatever archaic system Best Buy uses. I call in yesterday to modify my preorder for the Xbox One games I made back at bullet point one. One of the games I ordered had it's release date delayed, so I wanted to swap that game out for another. After talking with the first two employees, they CANCEL my game (Watch Dogs for Xbox One) when I explicitly told them NOT to. The reason I told them not to cancel my game was because I had (4) gift cards used on the order. I no longer have the gift cards (I'm not into the practice of hording trash, and I call it trash because the cards had already been used) so I don't want to lose my money on those. After them telling me they already canceled it and they can't reverse it (I could've canceled the game online myself, why would I call customer service to do this?), they transferred me to customer service rep #3. Now they're telling me that they can't swap items on an order that's already been placed even though I stressed that I DON'T HAVE THE GAMES, and THEY HAVEN'T RELEASED. Amongst all of this anarchy (Yes, Anarchy, is there any kind of control in place behind those scenes? Doesn't seem like it as no one knows how to do their job), I find it increasingly hard to hear and understand the Best Buy customer service reps. I thought this was my phone, but later on discover it's the communication system being used by specific customer service reps (some sounded crystal clear, others were IMPOSSIBLE to understand, and between being transferred I noticed the "elevator music" being muted to about 20% of the volume I initially heard it between other transfers. Another item to fix Best Buy) At this point I'm on customer service employee five or six (I lost count and was losing patience, but kept tying to be polite as they were just doing their job) at which point they hang up on me. I look at my phone...in complete disgust...a call time of 57 minutes and some change. With no choice, I reluctantly call back asking for a manager immediately. After spending about five minutes on the phone this time, the customer service employee hangs up on me AGAIN. I assure you this is not my phone. I had 4 out of 5 bars and have never in my life experienced dropped calls from my end since switching my service provider. And, once again, it was extremely hard to hear and understand that specific customer service employee (whether they were a manager or not, I don't know). When I initially call in, customer service sounds clear. The more they transferred me around like a ping-pong ball, the worse their connection got. I call a third time, almost having no clue what I'm calling about at this point. Exhausted...extremely upset, I just wanted this experience to be over with. Give me my money back that is rightfully mine and I'll complete the order that no one seems to have the ability to do. THANKFULLY I talked with someone who seemed intelligent and polite. I didn't get my game ordered, but she at least placed an order for replacement gift cards to be sent to me (not what I wanted, but at that point I didn't care). This was an absolute nightmare, and as if the first two bullet points don't make me want to stay away from Best Buy permanently, the last surely does.

I don't know what to say to you guys anymore. I'm tired of hearing empty apologizes. You guys aren't sorry. When you're sorry you work to fix what upset the individual in the first place if you were the responsible party. And you are.

 
Look at this image. Taken directly from your website. This is a joke and I don't want to hear anymore excuses. After I'm done spending my credit with Best Buy, there's little to no chance I will be shopping there any more. It's not worth my time and the incredible amount of stress it places on me. Let me share something personal; I already suffer from severe anxiety issues that I'm working on every day to conquer. It took every ounce in my body to not explode on your customer service employees on the phone and to not break out cussing in this email. I want to, but I try to maintain a level of professionalism that my company would expect ME to maintain throughout any situation. I've sparred those employees the nightmare I can be in situations like this. I want someone at corporate to look at this, and if they don't I'll find a way for my email to make it there. There's so many forums to post on, I'll reach who I need to reach to make a difference.
 
I would go through and proof-read my message, but you've wasted enough of my time, so I assume you can take the extra few minutes it would take to make sense of what I've written.
 
Thank you,
 
-Paul ?????"
 
Thanks for reading everyone. I'll update you if they ever get back to me.

 

[Ferrari Racer]

Lol I've never had issues with the Best Buys I go to. Sometimes I would wait about 5min for someone to show up at the service desk but that's just not a big deal.

I actually almost always go BB for games because I think they are a better store than Walmart or Gamestop.

 

[sgand]

I had 4 people huddled around the gaming register, including the store manager and cs manager, all trying to figure out how to trade in a game for me. The end result they came to was that it couldn't be done there, but had to be done at the cs desk.

Weird how I've been able to trade in many games in the past.

 

[ddp72984]

Hi guy!

First, I completely understand your frustrations, due in part that I used to work for best buy for 7+ years. Take a wild guess what department.

Not going to lie to you, a lot of the points you made above you hit on the head perfectly. BB (especially in the last year or so...) have made horrendous choices, mostly in particular the gaming section and customer service. As sad as it sounds, you nailed the point dead on:

They are doing so in order to cut corners/reduce costs/save their own asses.

You asked about the Gaming Department, right? This is the deal of why it doesn't exist anymore...

Long story short, instead of picking passionate people that were experts in their media to head said section, the corporate side insisted on picking leaders that were more focused on "the Best Buy" side of things (numbers, paperwork, the company rhetoric) first and foremost. For this, you got a case 95% of the time where it was the blind leading the blind, making light of important events and releases that truly mattered to hardcore gamers like the people here on CAG. After all, wasn't that what the section was made for? To cater to people like us?

For this, a lot of stuff was not taken seriously, like trade ins (especially console/portable trades), the @gamer magazine (why its digital now), and rush to floor priority. (why those new games are rarely on the shelf at the time of opening...). Most managers couldn't understand the coalition between the lack of the above and why people got upset/disgusted with the store's service.

As funny as it sounds, when the program started, we were told, "Yeah, BB's going after GameStop! Gonna do anything and everything to take that Gaming market from them!" However, 2 months later, HH Greggs started to come into the marketplace, especially where Best Buy's were located. I swear, CAG, every Best Buy manager acted like it was the end of days! My response to it was why should I care about a store that didn't really carry video games? How were they my competitors?

After a while, Best Buy stopped ordering products that weren't guarnteed best sellers (people who were there for the Vita launch or recent Wii U shoppers should know what I'm taking about...). I keep thinking about Demons Souls a few years back. What if stores didn't take a chance on that?

So, what of the Gaming department nowadays? Being mostly trained in Applicances and Car Electronics! Because, these days. That's where they believe more money lies in wait (i.e. gonna save Best Buy).

About the price match thing, sure, it sucks, but again, it's their way of saving their ass. Everyone has heard that report of how BB is the "Amazon Showroom," and the sad thing is that the Best Buy folks believe it as well, never mind the fact that people get mad over overpriced accessories and warranties that they fight you tooth and nail on. So, last year was the first holiday where all BBs officially matched online stores like Amazon, Newegg, Frys.com, etc. Beforehand, it depended on the store's management to do so. Since it seemed to worked somewhat, I guess BB changed the policy so that it would help reduce the constant price matching (especially the various fluxes of Amazon).

Finally, you mentioned calling Customer Service? Heres the kicker: the majority of those people are simply place holders who have little to no idea about the real life problems facing you and the store. To this day, I couldn't tell you if theyre located in this country or another (a la Apple). For this, like BestBuy.com, they often try blaming independence in order to excuse the difference between what happens in stores and outside. For example, try price matching an item you bought in store, and one you bought via online. The latter is a giant pain in the ass to do so. If you ask for help in the store, they tell you TS, there is nothing that can do. They need a system like Amazons CS...

I know a lot of people hate on the small guys of BB people, but the sad truth is that it's not their fault. They are mostly sheep being led by people who haven't have a ing clue to what they're doing. (the ironic thing is that the people that you guys usually see chit-chatting in a blue circle ARE ing managers, who go on to blame their underlings when someone reports them on the survey).

You wanna know why the associates are so sad and underwhelmed? Because they're constantly being chastised for not selling you that 100 dollar HDMI or that 80 dollar warranty by people too stupid to actually set an example in the first place! Heck, CAG, next time you see a Best Buy associate, ask them what a "Underperformance meeting" is. The short answer? For not meeting sometime insane sales goals, the whole store is bought in at 6AM on a Saturday where they are screamed at/threatened, etc for HOURS for not doing so! I wish I could have taped one and put it on YouTube.

Again, friend, I know this rant doesn't solve your problem, but at least you know why things are the way they are...good luck with your quest!

 

[GBAstar]

Place orders weekly online and have never had a problem getting orders to go through.  I know they have had some glitches that prevented GC's from being used in the past.

However most people that have had problems getting their orders to go through have actually been blacklisted for buying ridiculous amounts of DOTD and other clearance games.

 

[Bing147]

Ya, I buy from Best Buy online and have never had a problem.

Likely either an issue with your internet settings or you've been blacklisted, that isn't an accident.

As far as it taking that long to trade in games, that isn't a business priority for them at this point. Sucks if you want to do it, but you're the one who wants to do it so you'll have to take the time. If you're not willing to, don't. Pretty simple.

Return policies change. Ya, its nice to mention it, but they provide you with something that says it right on it. Once they've made the sale, the item is yours. If you want to return it, it is your responsibility to know how long you have.

That last experience does sound frustrating, but I don't know of any retailer that lets you "change" things. You can cancel and reorder, that's it. I've worked for a number of companies in sales and never found one that would be able to do what you wanted. They should have been clear up front that they could cancel it or they could leave it on the existing item and they definitely shouldn't have cancelled without your permission but still, a preorder isn't actually paid until the item ships. Those gift cards aren't used until that time and it makes little sense to get rid of them. It sounds like they found a good solution and it actually worked out better for you because now you will be able to use those on something else which without the cards really shouldn't have been possible.