of a business.
. Today, they
... (and all these links are for the benefit of teh Googles)
, it seems they just don't care. Perhaps they still manage to do enough business that losing a few
doesn't have enough of an affect on their bottom line to matter. But then, I do know that they were using a secret shopper company to find out how their employees were doing ... I know because I did a few secret shopper assignments there, and they earned
from me then. Just as they do for today.
Of course, I have fired off a letter to their corporate customer relations people. The text of which is below the fold. I don't think much will come of it. One other time (out of many) I had a problem that I tried to address through them, I had to bring the BBB into the picture to get things straightened out. At best, the shitty employees may have to find another line of work. I recommend landscaping.
Again, the links are for Google ...
To: Customer Relations
Today, I entered the
Best Buy store in Knoxville, TN for the purpose of purchasing a Kenwood car CD player/stereo for my daughter for her birthday present. I had already done as much research as I could online at
BestBuy.com but I still had a couple of questions. After waiting several minutes in that area, I was finally approached by an employee who asked if I was finding what I needed. NOT if I had questions or needed any help.
I said that I was looking for the Kenwood player/stereo that is on sale and also had a $40 gift card offer. Before I could even ask my question,
the employee interrupted me and said that was an online only offer. I said that I would then order online and pick up in store. He said that they were rarely available in-store and the site will always say they are, they really aren't. I said that was not my experience and tried to state that I had checked several models before decided on the Kenwood and some showed available and some didn't. But he
interrupted me again to further discourage me from trying to take advantage of the
gift card deal, I suppose.
I was
getting irate and decided to clarify with a manager, and possibly also get my still
unanswered questions addressed. So I went up front, asked for a manager and proceeded to wait for 20 minutes. I finally gave up, went to your competition's store and ordered the item from one of the wifi connected computers they have available for customers to use. I returned to the store and picked up the item.
Now, I still had questions - namely when I could arrange for installation and did buying online still qualify for the free install. I also needed to purchase a cable to connect an iPod to the CD player/stereo. I returned to the car audio area where I
stood around for nearly 30 minutes where I was totally ignored by the boy working there, the same one that was
rude and short with me earlier.
While waiting, I just happened to see a sign that said that HD enabled CD players/stereos came with a free $40 gift card! I have no idea and can't even begin to guess why
that employee lied to me about the sale offer. Surely he could have not known! That sign was right there in his department!
At this point,
I was well and truly enraged. I had been lied to, inconvenienced by having to leave to place an online order - which also made it so I
could not use the 10% off coupon! And then to return and
be ignored!
I am DONE with Best Buy! I have suffered
rotten customer service from
apathetic,
rude and
clueless employees for the LAST time! I have rarely been able to visit this Best Buy store without leaving
annoyed and
irritated at the least, and that only happens when I have minimal or no interaction with your employees. But then, the lack of said interaction is also often what ticks me off, because they have a really bad way of
ignoring people that are obviously in need of assistance.
So now for the finale ... I took the Kenwood player I had bought over to the returns area, set it on the counter and told the girl that
I wanted a refund. I was obviously hacked off, but instead of just doing what I asked,
the girl gave me attitude and said she needed to call a manager. Another woman came over and got in on the attitude game, which only served to
further enrage me. A manager finally arrived, asked what I needed and I told him a refund. I tried to address my grievance with him, but
he just blew me off. The woman rang up the refund, but while doing so, made a big show of slowly taking everything out of the box to check for missing parts, presumably, even though I told her that I had not even had it outside of the store.
Your
customer service standards must be horribly low to allow this kind of employee behavior to go on. I had hoped there was some kind of improvement, as I actually had a rather pleasant experience in that same store about a year ago when they worked with my insurance company to replace some items that were stolen from my home. It was a long drawn out, confusing and often frustrating affair, but it was made OK by the kind attention and empathy from the staff that was there that day. That is the one, ONE, time that I left with a positive experience from that store. Over the years, I have made many, many purchases amounting to thousands of dollars. But never again.
Today, I also
did not purchase a $190 Acer monitor and a $150 Logitech desktop set. I will be writing to Acer, Logitech and Kenwood to inform them of the reasons why
I did not buy their products today, and never will again at Best Buy.
Yours truly,
A
seriously pissed off (former) customer
------------------------------
The above letter is free to use by anyone that wishes to assist in the Google-bombing of Best Buy, especially if you have a 5+ Page Rank.
« Hush me up!
Posted by Bobby on 06/20 at 03:52 AM