Best Customer Service...Best Buy

[setlok73]

I know alot of my fellow GDers haven't had stellar Customer Service with BB...but I have to say that I have the best! DH bought a digital camera a couple weeks ago for his mom, well of course it went on sale, you're only suppose to be able to price match dig. cameras for 14 days but we were just past that. The young man at the customer service counter couldn't do anything for us, but we are loyal BB shoppers (closing in on 2 million rewards points).

 

We were frustrated but had other items to worry about so we went to see if our favorite personal shoppers were working...while there the new manager over the personal shoppers comes over and asks if everything is ok. We gave him a high level explanation and he says "I'll handle this", before we knew it he had the $50 refunded to us and we were done.

 

Our personal shoppers have been a true God send for us. They have made our lives so much better during this season. I am sending a letter to the corporate office to commend them. We have also told the store manager. Without Mary and Dana...I wouldn't shop there!

 

Just wanted everyone to know, Customer Service is alive in Colorado Best Buy's :)

[4gtkids]

That's great! companies that have great customer service should be commended!

[soonerdiva805]

I thought BB was great this year. I had a rep spend 30 minutes with me comparing specs on a couple of electronic items. No signs of irritation at all.

[natthas]

I think so. I was at BB on BFF in VA. They were very good.

[lovebears65]

When we were purchasing the PS3 the guy there spent almost an hour with my DH because he wanted all the right stuff to hook it up so it was in surround sound and what cables he needed the guy was great and when we go there we always look for him..

[WAHCHING]

BB is so great that they'll charge you a 15% restocking fee

[H_Hancock]

BB is so great that they'll charge you a 15% restocking fee

You know..........I've heard that they do that, like CC does, too, and CompUSA and Newegg and such. But personally, I've never ever had to pay a restocking fee to return anything anywhere, and I've returned stuff to everywhere under the sun.

 

After years of buying, one cannot but help buy things that don't work or you find out it was the wrong thing.

 

I do personally think the restocking fees come into play according as to how the customer approaches the return. I've seen people, and esp. younger people, approach the return desk with something like a chip on their shoulder before the transaction even begins, almost wanting a confrontation. My best guess.....treat the customer service counter worker like dirt or an adversary and you'll get exactly what you give.

 

Case in point.....had a gift card from BB last year. Didn't really want anything but wife needed a new chair so we bought one.....and were told there would be a restocking fee to return by the teenager who helped get the box off the top shelf.

 

It rightly sucked as far as seating so it went back......and no restocking fee. We were nice to them from the beginning and they returned the favor.......through all three chairs we took home and returned. Eventually bought something else entirely different and the chair from OD.

 

So, despite the stores saying they ALL charge restocking fees, most rarely seem to follow through unless you're a complete butthead towards the staff. That's from our personal experience and from many of our friends. I guess being older and more patient and polite does have its advantages instead of treating the situation as an entitlement situation.

[hocysk8er]

THERE ARE NO RESTOCKING FEES ANYMORE. THEY QUIT DOING THAT. I brought back a bunch of stuff, (didgital camera, digital photo frame, tv, camcorder) and the girl told me that they stopped with the restocking fees. They just sell a whole lot less open items. I have someone inspect returns and tape the box back with "inspected and approved by bestbuy"

[Floridasunshine]

I truly am glad you had a good experience with BB. But I have to say, that has not been my experience at the Orange Park, FL BB at all. Hopefully, the good service will trickle down here soon.

[Jenna Talia]

I guess being older and more patient and polite does have its advantages instead of treating the situation as an entitlement situation.

Older people can be impatient as well. I have noticed your "richer" types have the entitlement thing down pat, young or old.

[daz]

THERE ARE NO RESTOCKING FEES ANYMORE. THEY QUIT DOING THAT. I brought back a bunch of stuff, (didgital camera, digital photo frame, tv, camcorder) and the girl told me that they stopped with the restocking fees. They just sell a whole lot less open items. I have someone inspect returns and tape the box back with "inspected and approved by bestbuy"

Oh yes there are! There was a 10 minute piece on the local news, almost every store in lincoln and omaha are charging restocking fees this year...

[chwk]

You know..........I've heard that they do that, like CC does, too, and CompUSA and Newegg and such. But personally, I've never ever had to pay a restocking fee to return anything anywhere, and I've returned stuff to everywhere under the sun.

 

After years of buying, one cannot but help buy things that don't work or you find out it was the wrong thing.

 

I do personally think the restocking fees come into play according as to how the customer approaches the return. I've seen people, and esp. younger people, approach the return desk with something like a chip on their shoulder before the transaction even begins, almost wanting a confrontation. My best guess.....treat the customer service counter worker like dirt or an adversary and you'll get exactly what you give.

 

Case in point.....had a gift card from BB last year. Didn't really want anything but wife needed a new chair so we bought one.....and were told there would be a restocking fee to return by the teenager who helped get the box off the top shelf.

 

It rightly sucked as far as seating so it went back......and no restocking fee. We were nice to them from the beginning and they returned the favor.......through all three chairs we took home and returned. Eventually bought something else entirely different and the chair from OD.

 

So, despite the stores saying they ALL charge restocking fees, most rarely seem to follow through unless you're a complete butthead towards the staff. That's from our personal experience and from many of our friends. I guess being older and more patient and polite does have its advantages instead of treating the situation as an entitlement situation.

I am "older" and consider myself very polite and CC charged me a restocking fee when I returned a 250$ digital camera. They wouldn't have charged me a restocking fee if I had purchased a different camera at the time of the return, but after the disapointment with that camera, I wanted to do some further research before buying another.

Long story short...I lost the 15% at CC and you better believe I did not buy the next camera from them.

[sjsdvs]

We only have had great experiences with Best Buy this year. We stood in the black friday line and everyone was great! We purchased a few gifts afterwards and again excellent service! We are totally impressed with them. This was at the Peoria Illinois store.

[bbyee]

As a BB employee I can tell you that yes, we do charge restocking fees, and yes, your attitude can go a long way to determining if that fee is actually charged. With items such as computers and digicameras, we don't make money on them, plain and simple, so if you return an item which we can then only resell as an open box item, we take a loss on something we're not even profitting on.

 

The key to not getting hit with a restocking fee is to NOT bring it up...why? Because if you ask about it, CS is more likely to hit you for it because most people who ask about it are rude about the entire transaction.

 

another little tip...if you buy many items in the same department....say you buy a digicam but you return once a month to buy another accessory (printer, memory cards, whatever), try to get the same sales person (if you like him/her) and remind them what you've bought previously (and not in the "DON'T YOU REMEMBER ME???" way) and you might also get a little discount...we love satisfied repeat customers!

[drmad7]

Good for Best Buy! Good Customer Service is always appreciated. But I remember the "restocking fee" was initiated by Circuit City BEFORE Best Buy started doing it. It was the main reason I stopped shopping at Circuit City for so long. And maybe BB has recently stopped charging the fee since July 2006. I spent $1600 on a Toshiba laptop and when I got home, it had three dead pixels. I took it back to the store and was very nice about the entire thing and the service rep was nice too, but she did say that if the notebook was NOT defective, I would have to pay the 15% restocking fee. It wasn't because I was a jerk or anything, it was just their policy. It was ruled defective and they gave me another laptop and it was defective also, so they did not charge me the restocking fee(I bought a Dell instead). I think kindness goes a very long way in getting good service, but I also think it depends on the service person also. Kudos to great service at Best Buy. May it spread like good cheer in 2007!

[DramaQueenLucy]

My PSA was great way after bf I needed a black DS Lite and she got it off the truck for me and held it until I got there in the cage at customer service...it was great no having to search how many stores stand in line or fight for it just went to customer service and picked it up.

[drmad7]

Columbus, Ohio Best Buys don't do the Personal Shopper thing. That would be great if they did.

[nikkilugi]

Well I had a nice experience tonight at BB as well. I purchased the Thrillville last week for $39.99 through BB.com and did the instore pickup. Well tonight I went for a price adjustment and the cs girl said that she really couldn't price adjust online purchases but she could return the game and let me repurchase it. I said that I didn't actually bring the game with me and she said no problem at all she could do it without.

 

All in all a great experience and very quick.

[stsnfes]

Glad someone has luck at Best Buy.. in our house we refer to it as

 

"Best Buy, Worst Service"

[Josher5513]

I'm glad some of you have only had wonderful experiences with BB this year.. Wish I could say the same.. Sure, there were many-times this holiday season that I was able to walk in and out without having a problem, but BB does have it's bad apples.

 

My biggest problem with them during the holidays, is the Temps. The temps really don't know anything about the merchandise, so everytime I asked, they either told me "I don't know" or "Hold on, I'll go get someone" and would never return. I think Temps should be put in the back making sure things stay stocked, or on the registers (It's not hard to register-train, I do it for a living).

 

Another thing is ill-informed workers (including managers) who act like you're completely out-of-line for knowing their policy better than they do. When I bought my iPod Nano using Best Buy Bucks a few months ago, it took 20 minutes on hold with 1-888-BEST-BUY, and being hung up on twice by the store manager, before Customer Service called the store and told the manager that iPods weren't on the excluded list this year... Even then I didn't get an apology.. Just an accusation of working for McDonalds and stealing the Best Buy Bucks.

 

So to each his own, I guess.

[GTZDUDE90]

I'm glad you've experienced great service at Best Buy but this most vary per store.

My local store in Chandler, AZ has the absolute worst customer service. They don't even adhere to their own policies. I've had numerous problems price matching identical in stock items advertised by other local retailers. Last time I was in the chandler, AZ store they said they couldn't price match FRY'S Electronics because it was one city over in Tempe, AZ therefore not considered a local competitor. However the store located farther away from FRY'S in Mesa did price match.

[bbyee]

There are going to be bad experiences in any store (including BB, CC and the rest) - the key is by doing everything possible on your end to put the people you are dealing with in the right mindset before becoming angered.

 

In my BB we were warned about the McD's reward zone coupon thing because there were people coming in with more than $50 in coupons who did not have a RZ card .... and yes, you had to eat a lot of McD's to accumulate more than $50 in coupons. As the store, we have the right to be suspicious, and we are informed when there is suspected fraud (ie, the local McD's experienced theft and a lot of RZ coupons with their promotion went missing). Unfortunately, it's one of the hazards of the business.

 

I personally don't like when I can't help work out an equitable solution with people - I had someone come in with an irrepairable laptop and she bought the warranty for 3 yrs, so she was entitled to a replacement laptop of comparable specs. There was a difference in the processor speed between the existing and replacement laptop (actually, the one she was getting had a higher bus speed and the RAM was considerably more, but the processor itself was a tad slower). She found this unacceptable so I suggested that we try to upgrade her to a better machine (one step up) for a small fee to make her happy. Unfortunately, my management wouldn't let me do that, and I understand the reasons why on a technical level and business fundemental but not necessarily from an overall customer service level. The woman didn't accept the replacement laptop and I believe contacted Corporate. Don't know what happened.

 

From my experience at working at BB, I think the biggest problem are "serial retailers" - people who haven't worked outside the retail environment and just have moved up the food change without experiencing other businesses. I would love to see more people from outside of the industry, particularly with BB's "customer centric" philosophy, as to create a better shopping experience for our customers.

 

I am one of the most highly complemented sales people in my store (fact, told to me by numerous managers and customer service staff) and a big part of that is because I have more life experience than most staff, ie, I know how to treat people. I might not always be able to get a customer what they need within their financial parameters, but they never leave feeling stupid or not understanding why it didn't work out.