Best Buy: The customer is always right? Not anymore

Well, first off, I think the whole "customer is always right" thing was never the norm at places like Best Buy.

There are scammers and the like who need to be held in check. The trick is having rules that will catch such people without alienating good customers.

Personally, though, I don't understand the problem. They talk in the article about customers who take too much time from the sales associates and don't buy anything, yet every time I go to Best Buy, the sales associates are just standing around not doing anything. And there are people who explore their options and then come back and buy later. If I talk to a salesperson one day and then buy the next day without talking to the associate again, am I a bad customer? Possibly, according to this philosophy. (Of course, it may take so much of an associate's time to answer questions because the sales associate often doesn't know the products he's selling)

I don't understand the hate toward customers who just buy during big sales. Perhaps they only do that because Best Buy prices are higher than others on the things they otherwise would buy.

I'm not sure how Best Buy knows when I shop there anyway. When I'm buying DVDs and the like, I pay cash. If I'm buying a bigger ticket item, I'm more likely to use a card.

I refuse to accept the idea that I'm a bad customer because I refuse to pay more for something than I can get it elsewhere.

I think one of the big problems with retail is this idea that you must maximize every customer. I don't think that takes into account a lot of powerful marketing. The customers Best Buy attempts to turn away talk to people who might well be better customers. I know I don't shop some places because of bad experiences other people have had.

 

And Best Buy is asking me for my phone number when I buy CDs there now. When did they turn into Radio Shack?

 

Really? Are you sure the clerk wasn't just hitting on you?

I hadn't that happen to me yet, but I'm not giving my phone number out to Best Buy. I understand it would be used to track their customers, but it's an invasion of privacy to me.

If they want my phone number, they can offer me something in return. I might be persuaded with a 15% additional discount on each sale I had to give my phone number for.

 

If it's an expensive item, I usually try to deal with the sales team and get it at cost. Usually works. But now I'm a devil customer. Geez.

 

Well it happened last week at the store in Frisco and again yesterday at the Woodlands store. And both times I was rung up by gawky teen-age boys, so I kinda doubt they would be that forward.

 

Practically everything in my house is from Best Buy...They've gotten crappy on their return policy the past couple of years (i.e. w/in 30 days of purchase, need a reciept, etc.)...

The payment plan and service plans rule, but I would suspect in a low margin business they're in, every little bit helps...

 

About 8 years ago, I worked part-time in a backpacking/climbing store... we had this one customer who would come in and buy a gore-tex jacket... he'd keep it for a few weeks or even months... and return it at our other location. I can't imagine how he was actually getting any value out of it (since it really wasn't raining enough to make it worth his trouble). In general, I didn't really mind it that much... it became a bit of a joke at the stores. At the end of 2 years, I think they'd figured out that he had owned about 18 different jackets, and returned all of them. Over time, we'd end up losing sale opportunities to other people because of that guy...

Seems like many people tend to just take advantage of stores that have a really customer-friendly attitude. No more retail for me...

 

I guess it will eventually get to the point where any customer who simply comes in and spends all the money they have in their wallet without asking a single salesperson a question, buys an extended warranty but never exercises it and will never return anything even if that thing doesn't work is the only customers Best Buy will want to have.

 

I think Best Buy's position is that it doesn't want to lose customers, but their position is to not lose money on a customer.

 

Yeah, but they're talking about customers they don't necesarily know for sure are unprofitable customers.

When you've not been tracking all your customers, how do you even know you have any of these customers they describe? Yet, they seem sure they exist to the point that they need to change the way they do business.

It's just a step down the road toward only wanting those customers who are willing to overpay (they're on record as not liking customers who only respond to sale prices), spend a lot and not ask any questions or return anything.

It's a risky thing to deal with. The more difficult you make it for people to buy, the less likely they are to buy. They may talk about turning these customers into profitable customers, but it's extremely difficult to change people's behavior, especially when the person who will be charged with changing said behavior is a Best Buy clerk who often has enough trouble keeping up with the products alone.

I mean, how do you change a person who wants to do research before buying into a customer who buys immediately? Other than becomming more like car salesmen (and nearly everyone hates buying cars) and locking folks in the office, taking their keys and applying the hard pressure tactics, I don't know how you do it. Yet, Best Buy thinks these people are potentially bad customers and apparently plans to try to get them to change their ways.

Here's my prediction. Change the way they do business enough to affect the shopping experience in a negative way (i.e. adding the hard sell or limiting sales or making people buy higher priced merchandise just to take advantage of a sale, etc.) and they WILL lose customers whether they want to or not.

 

Wow!

I give 'em a fake zip code, so they can rest assured they won't be getting a legit phone # off of me.

Nice try, Best Buy.

 

"Why does Radio Shack ask for your phone number when you buy batteries? I don't know." - Kramer on Seinfeld

By the way, Radio Shack does not ask for this info anymore.

 

Mrpaige,

You're making a mountain out of a molehill. There are many ways BB can be customer friendly and prevent demon customers from costing them money. One is to reward repeat customers with discount points that work like comps at casinos. Another would be to do away with sales and lower prices accordingly to attact the good customers who know than can get a good (may not be the best, but they don't have to waste time shopping for it) deal anytime. As far as returns go, require a receipt or the person's fake phone number so they can bring up transaction.

As far as abusing sales associates, I don't see an immediate solution. Sales associates are there to answer questions and assist. Sales associates are not there to walk people down the aisle and do their shopping for them. Not talking about BB here, but I have seen customers enter other stores go straight to the help desk so the customer service rep can take them right to the DVD they want.

Personally, I don't want to pay a surplus on a product because of demon customers and shoplifters.

 

Wouldn't mind seeing some of that, though the point still is that they're sure they have these demon customers, yet there's no way to know whether they do or not since they've not been tracking their customers prior to now.

I don't want to see the Albertson's way of tracking customers, either, where they raise the prices on everything in the store and then offer a discount card to give the perception of better deals when, in fact, things are generally more expensive (I know several of the things I buy are more expensive now even with the discount card than they were before they introduced the discount card).

You just have to consider how they do business now. Their sales associates are almost always useless. If you can find one at all, they quite often don't know the product well enough to answer any questions and, quite often, they end up being real nasty about the extended warranty (I've had several openly berate me for not wanting an extended warranty).

When you hear the people who make these decisions for the chain say they want to get rid of customers who shop around, that's a cause for concern. He may not mean it, but it's a 'used car salesman' type notion. And if Best Buy wants to become more like car lots, they're going to end up losing customers.

You'll probably end up paying a surplus on products anyway. I don't know for a fact, but the recent raising of prices on DVDs at Best Buy may well be related to their desire to get rid of those 'lowest price' shoppers who are supposedly costing the chain money.

It's interesting to me, though, that there's no mention from Best Buy about maybe training their sales staff better. I mean, having them actually help you might increase sales. Having them know something about their products might help sales. But no, judging by this article, it's the customer's fault, not the sales associate who doesn't know anything and who's too busy standing around to help.

And since this drive to get rid of bad customers is also potentially going to include slowing down my ability to buy things and invade my privacy, I don't know how I'm winning here.

Of course, I'm a bad customer because I sometimes go into their stores and look around without buying anything. I don't bother with the sales associates (I don't want to interrupt their standing around time), but I am breathing the store's air.

Perhaps Best Buy should start charging a cover charge. Five bucks to get in the door, which will be deducted from whatever you're buying. That would get rid of the bad customers without a proper shopping agenda, I'm sure.

 

They have all the info they need on anybody who uses a Reward Zone card.

 

One of my favorite pastimes is getting into heated hi-fi arguments with the Best Buy Bose salespeople. Poor, deluded, clueless employees. They never know what hit 'em. Ah... good times, noodle salad.

Yep. I most definitely AM a demon customer.

 

Never used one. Never been offered one. Don't even know what it is.

 

Eh, if they're the same people who go out to eat and tip horribly, then good riddance to them.