Best Buy & Geek Squad Policies

[caso-matthew]

Hi to everyone!

So, after about 20 minutes on this site, I recognize that we, not necessarily as a company, but in far too many instances for it to be "isolated," don't always take care of you, the customer, very well.  Let's be frank... that sucks.

I'm not a career Best Buy employee (and no offense intended to anyone who is!), but I always cringe when I surf through posts on tech sites such as Engadget or Gizmodo and I see how frequently our name gets trashed - or reading about some of your crappy experiences that tarnish our reputation with you...  because I kind of like my job a lot, and anything that causes you as a customer to lose faith in what I believe to be an excellent organization hits hard for me.  Bottom line is, you're the ones who pay my bills, and regardless of religious affiliation, I absolutely believe in the Golden Rule - as tough as it is to follow sometimes!  So yeah, when I hear/see anything like I've seen on these forums and elsewhere, I take a little bit of offense at that.

So, here's my question...  In general, what can we realistically do better to make your experiences with us good (or maybe even fulfilling/inspiring?)

Vent.  Make suggestions.  Don't hold back on the criticism, but please be constructive about it (trolling gives me hives...) - this is legit!

Am I in a position to make broad, sweeping changes?  No.  Let me be upfront about that - at the end of the day, I'm an hourly employee who does this full-time until I figure out what I want to do with the rest of my life.  But I truly believe that the best, most effective change comes from the ground up, not from the top down, and if I can make a difference with little things in my store based on what you tell me here, then maybe your next time coming into a Best Buy won't spike your blood pressure -  maybe you'll even want to hug us.  (I will be a bit taken aback at first, but I am generally an open-minded person, haha.)

And... GO!

[SlimJim77]

Nice post, Matthew. Welcome to the boards.

[GeraldRose]

While this is an interesting thread, if the thread picks up steam, the responses will be outrageous.

I would say if BBY could do anything, they need to be better organized, they need to have a admin/secretary for Geek Squad, they need to have perhaps a couple of people who are dedicated to answering phones. I know there is something where they have a person who is dedicated to answering phones but even that doesn't always work.

Best Buy needs to find a nice medium between selling service plans, and having associates stretch or lie about the benefits. We all know the service plans benefit BBY but behind the plans are some real benefits too.

A lot of people complain about BBYs policies, but I don't think that is a problem, the policies HAVE to be there, you cannot make it up as you go, if BBY were a regional store with maybe even 100 stores they could be more flexible and all stores wouldn't always follow the same rules, but with the number of BBY stores they have to have a uniform policy and have to follow it.

Even with the number of complaints people need to realize it's still small % wise.

Overall BBY does a great job at customer service, and this isn't me blowing smoke. There have been surveys done in the past couple of years BBY was way ahead of Ccity, way ahead of wallyworld, and others. So obviously people post the negative and make hay when they are mad, but don't forget BBY does 40 billion dollars in revenue a year.  That's about 109 million dollars a day in sales (average). So BBY is doing a lot of things right.

We need the thread from associates asking what they want from customers.

[caso-matthew]

@SlimJim - thanks for the welcome!

@GeraldRose - you bring up a couple of interesting points, so let me address each one individually.

1.  Dedicated phone person - yeah, we've got them, and they're part of my department.  I'm what's known as a Customer Assistant, and our dedicated phone people are called Sales Operators - basically, the phone version of me.  Our positions exist because of feedback like yours - excessive hold/wait times either on the phone or in store, lack of available help, etc.  The idea was even if we weren't specialists in one department, we're sort of jack-of-all-trades enough that we can help you with just about everything in our stores, or at least help you enough until we get a specialist available for you.

Unfortunately, not every store has embraced it like ours did - from what I've heard (and note my disclaimer in my signature), instead of putting their best and brightest people in the program, some stores used it as a dumping ground for problem employees or put newer employees in it before placing them in a department in which to specialize.  In addition, store management teams have not always given enough labor to staff people on the phones, or they sometimes pull Sales Operators out onto the floor because of an attitude that "the customer in the store is more important."

I can tell you that as a company, that's not an attitude we embrace.  The last two months especially, there has been a lot of focus on making our phone help better - because for some people, that's their first impression of Best Buy, and why would we want that to be a bad one?  It's going to get better, believe me - stores like mine, where we've made it a priority, consistently have been higher-rated for customer satisfaction and frankly do more business.

2.  Service plans.  ARGHHHHHH.  I feel like this has been an area that we constantly take one step forward, two steps back in.  As an employee, I can definitely speak to the benefits of what a service plan (sorry! "Black Tie Protection," as they're officially called) can do for you, as a customer, but man... I know how you guys get bombarded with this sort of thing all the time.  Are you going to get your money's worth out of them if applied correctly?  You better believe it!  

And therein lies a BIG problem I've seen in my time with regards to protection plans - overpromising, underdelivering.  From a lot of the complaints I've seen on this site or in general, salespeople like myself build a WONDERFUL vision of what you're spending extra money on, only for you to find out that that um... not so much.  So as a customer, why wouldn't you feel betrayed?  

When we switched to our Black Tie Protection plans, one of the big emphases was that we should always offer it IF IT WAS RIGHT FOR THE CUSTOMER.  So yeah, when an employee gets pushy towards you about getting 3 years of accidental damage coverage on a laptop that's not even $400, that you're basically using at a desk all of the time, and the plan itself is more than half that cost, why wouldn't you be annoyed?  My question would be, why would you want to pay that much?  I'll make you aware of it, but let's be real - your objection is totally valid in that case.  Maybe on a higher-dollar laptop, and factoring in all of the other benefits, I'll spar with you - but I hate getting pushed into things, and I'm going to treat you, the customer, the same way.

[GeraldRose]

Accommodates,

I love the thread, and like the responses very much, and your right that their are so many great employees out there, and that a lot of stores are wonderful.

You are also correct that despite BBY putting initiatives together that on paper look wonderful, and are to benefit the customer. It seems something gets lost in translation.

I know for the longest time in a store, MOM's refused to allow customers to bring items in under mfg warranty, they would basically say no service plan-no help. I also know of instances where some employees would inboard service plans, and if the management wasn't aware, then they were clueless, but of course I assume the managers would turn a blind eye to it when they would cash in on some bonuses.

I think the stores could do a better job at getting friendly people as well. I don't think its that anyone it outright rude to people but they don't make a effort to be friendly either. Part of the problem I think is that BBY is a "young" company sales people are generally younger (35 or below), in turn the Managers tend to be on the young side as well, also BBY does a lot of promoting from within, which is great, except if you have a 25 year old FT associate he/she becomes friends with all their coworkers, it is a family atmosphere, then they get promoted and there is not a distinction between manager and friend. So if a complaint comes in about a coworker to this new manager the manager doesn't seem to get the proper training to be able to address the customer service issue.

I know of a employee who has been there for 6 years has got to be SUP but he would rather be peoples friends than peoples boss. So when their is a dispute between a customer and one of his employees he sides with the employees. I'm not saying everyone does that but I think it is something that occurs in young people more often.

I will add more if I think of it.

[SlimJim77]

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GeraldRose wrote:

Accommodates,

I love the thread, and like the responses very much, and your right that their are so many great employees out there, and that a lot of stores are wonderful.

You are also correct that despite BBY putting initiatives together that on paper look wonderful, and are to benefit the customer. It seems something gets lost in translation.

I know for the longest time in a store, MOM's refused to allow customers to bring items in under mfg warranty, they would basically say no service plan-no help. I also know of instances where some employees would inboard service plans, and if the management wasn't aware, then they were clueless, but of course I assume the managers would turn a blind eye to it when they would cash in on some bonuses.

I think the stores could do a better job at getting friendly people as well. I don't think its that anyone it outright rude to people but they don't make a effort to be friendly either. Part of the problem I think is that BBY is a "young" company sales people are generally younger (35 or below), in turn the Managers tend to be on the young side as well, also BBY does a lot of promoting from within, which is great, except if you have a 25 year old FT associate he/she becomes friends with all their coworkers, it is a family atmosphere, then they get promoted and there is not a distinction between manager and friend. So if a complaint comes in about a coworker to this new manager the manager doesn't seem to get the proper training to be able to address the customer service issue.

I know of a employee who has been there for 6 years has got to be SUP but he would rather be peoples friends than peoples boss. So when their is a dispute between a customer and one of his employees he sides with the employees. I'm not saying everyone does that but I think it is something that occurs in young people more often.

I will add more if I think of it.

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Your post is excellent, and most of you points are valid.

All I can say is...I, personally, would not work for anyone who would throw me under the bus. As a superviser, one could not work for me if customer issues became the norm. If I'm confident in my employee's ability, then I will defend them...with my own job, if necessary.

You insinuate that a 'family' atmoshere somehow weakens one ability to be objective about performace. I could not disagree more. It's totally the opposite. My 'brother' would tell me if a bugger was hanging from my nose. My 'boss' would laugh and tell others to check it out, because he just doesn't like me.

[GeraldRose]

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SlimJim77 wrote:

You insinuate that a 'family' atmosphere somehow weakens one ability to be objective about performance. I could not disagree more. It's totally the opposite. My 'brother' would tell me if a bugger was hanging from my nose. My 'boss' would laugh and tell others to check it out, because he just doesn't like me.

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I regretted using that term almost immediately after I read what I had wrote.

I guess what I meant to say is that because most managers start off as PT/FT associates they develop relationships with the staff and become friends or close friends with them. Then they get promoted, and generally they do not have formal business management training, Most of the training they will get will be from Best Buy, the new managers already have these preexisting relationships and I think it then becomes hard to go from being coworker to being boss.

I know personally I would have a very hard time disciplining my friend for being snippy with a customer, for a couple of reasons 1. He is my friend and I know how customers are sometimes 2. Its hard to separate yourself and be close friends with someone one minute and writing them up the next.

I know management moves often but perhaps that is the best thing they do, let someone become a manager and then move them to a new store to establish themselves, that way they don't know the staff and don't have to worry about personal relationships getting in the way of being an effective leader.

[ajttk1234]

Interesting post-I will try and post in the spirit that you are asking for. 1) Lets start with the one consistently good thing about shopping at my local Best Buy-The greeter/bag check people have always been friendly and helpful. which is actually important as they are both the first and last person a customer sees. 2) Sales staff, especially in the computer section have been mixed. I have had 1 good experience, which happened to be the first time I entered a BB. After being in the computer dept about 5 minutes,both a GS and a "blue shirt" asked if I needed any assistance and were able to answer questions knowledgeably and were able to make a sale. Other timesnot as good.  When buying a bag to carry the laptop, no one was ever inquired if we needed help. Bought one anyway, even though I did have a minor question.The last three times I was in, I actually had questions about the differences between a couple models of laptop and even though the store was empty, no one approached me to see if I needed assistance. When I approached a sales associate they told me they would be with me in a minute and after five minutes I simply walked out. The other two times with slaes associates standing around talking to each other but not coming over to see if I wanted help, I simply walked. 3)GSBTPS- If when being sold this, I had been told that if I had a problem that wasnt easily fixed, that the laptop would not be repaired, in store, but would be sent to a service center hundreds of miles away, that receives truckloads of items daily, I never would have bought it. 4) GS in store have been mixed, from helpful,disinterested, insulting and downright rude.5) The forum itself. It is really frustrating to have people (some who identify as BB employees but not mods), be condescending and/or imply that that customers (ie the people who pay their salaries) are lying or leaving out information or "explain" why the customer is in some way wrong. It is also tiring to read time after time that having a problem with BB or GS or the length of time a repair is taking is not the usual. Anyways, I hpoe this topic is explored by a variety of people on the form.

[MobileExpert]

I think it's better for managers to be friends with their subordinates. Write-ups are extremely rare for most people. Usually they are only done when HR will find out about something, and managers/sups need accountability. Most of the time it is just a quick talking-to.

And while customers are often truthful, you do have to remember that some customers do lie. I have had occasions where a customer asks for a manager, and then proceeds to tell the manager how rude and mean the employee was. This is after I watch the entire interaction and saw the employee be nothing but nice.

I once had a customer tell a manager that she thought I was on drugs because when she told me her phone wouldn't turn on, I had her go over to CS to swap it out. Turns out that she didn't know how to turn it on.

I had another customer complain to our Ops sup that I must be gay because I ignored her while she was in my dept. This was a woman who spent about 30 minutes looking at BT headsets and phone chargers, and was on her phone from the second she entered to the second she left. I avoid helping customers on their phones, because too often I am just ignored, and sometimes I get a rude "can't you see I'm on the phone!"

Do not take this as belittling customer complaints in any way. Of course there are those that are truthful, and I have seen evidence of some. But when a manager is presented with a customer saying one thing, and an employee saying another, they are often not going to take disciplinary action against the employee that could eventually result in them losing their job, because they don't want someone to lose their job over something a customer may have made up. I believe unless there are unrelated customer witnesses, the employee should simply get a vocal reprimand.

[GeraldRose]

I agree that having friends at work is a wonderful thing and makes it a more enjoyable experiance. But I do think there are instances where personal friendships get in the way of being an effective leader, because some people cannot distinguish the difference. They get owrried about losing a friend.

I agree customers over blow situations and want it to come off as bad as possible in hopes that  a manager will help them out.

I also dont think every occasion warrants a write up but I do think there should be documentation written somewhere. If it happens once in 6 months the customer may have been blowing smoke or the assoc had a bad day, but if it happens 8 times in 6 months that seems like a pattern and chances are the person is rude or does give bad customer service.