In going back over the original post, it was not entirely clear that this was a returned item. The reference to the tape was about that. Clearly it was resealed. As such Best Buy had made 10% merely for allowing the customer to return the item. They are so generous.

Further, if an item is on display so one can make a final decision, then yes it is a moot point. In this instance however, not only was there no model on display but only through the customer’s persistence were we able to get the worker bee to check behind the bars to see if one of the mystery boxes might be what we had come in for. By golly, the customer was right again.

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Hi Sarah – Welcome to PassingThru! Thank you for taking the initiative to respond, and I appreciate that you will forward this cautionary tale to the Minnetonka store. However, the Minnetonka store is not the only Best Buy location that has been notorious for lo, these many years, in delivering similar abysmal service levels. It makes you wonder about how expectations are set and communicated to store employees, and whether the customer is truly a priority when it comes to the day-to-day in store operations for Best Buy.

Quite honestly, mentioning that you’ll send this along doesn’t provide much incentive toward giving the store another chance when there’s such longevity of negative experience. When there is little choice for consumers in a market, these concepts don’t matter much to merchants. When employees aren’t empowered, or are constrained by ignorance (entirely possible with our young employee) or store policy (more likely), it matters even less to them. In recessionary times, the businesses that deliver an exceptionally great experience are going to be the ones that get the consumer’s precious dollars.

I’ve been training franchisees for years on how to develop and maintain long-term, high dollar volume relationships with customers. I’d be curious to know what training methods and programs are currently in place and what the expectations really are for store employees in meeting customer service standards. And, I’d be willing to offer my expertise in these areas to Best Buy, as well.

I sold my BBY stock when it was in the $50′s years ago. To my knowledge it’s never been close to that in the last several years before the market tanked. Your company has an awesome opportunity to surge ahead and dominate in this economy. But store policies are going to blow that opportunity if no changes are made.

Thank you again for your sincere response. I’d be happy to take things further with you or any representative of your company privately, if desired.

I’m Sarah, one of Best Buy’s online community agents. We frequently review online postings to assist individuals with their technical issues.

In doing so, I came across your post and while it does not appear to be a technical issue, as you state you are very happy with the Netbook itself, I do sincerely apologize for the poor experience you had in our Minnetonka location when making your purchase.

We hope to provide our customers with great shopping experiences that they can brag about and we take feedback such as this very seriously. Therefore, I will be forwarding the information you have provided to the appropriate supervisors and management teams so that the situation may continue to be reviewed for improvement opportunities.

I also hope that if you choose to give our Minnetonka location another chance in the future, you will receive much better service and know that you helped to make that difference!

Sincerely,
Sarah
Best Buy Community Connector
http://forums.bestbuy.com

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