My expierence is that the employees do suck, at least on their knowledge of Reward Zone. I work on the Reward Zone phone lines, and some of the stuff that the employees tell customers is unbelievable.

Many reps tell customers that those RZ coupons can be renewed after expiring. They in fact cannot be renewed.... I actually had one rep on the phone with me one night arguing that point. Then she demanded to speak to my supervisor! The rules of RZ are pretty basic, yet many of them have no clue at all. A number also tell customers that they can get points for online purchases, when it clearly states, even in the weekly flyer, that online purchases are ineligible. Can't these people read? But I guess they don't want to deal with them in the store, so they send them to us.

I agree, I doubt that he was trained to do it, but the problem is that he obviously wasn't properly trained on how to check for the discount in the first place. Best Buy Corporate strikes (out) again!

Question: Is Best Buy's RZ run by an outside company? I'm guessing that this is (more or less) the same program as (the former) Musicland's Replay?

There are two possible scenarios here: the first is that Best Buy trains their employees to lie about the RZ program. Given BB's track record this is possible, but I doubt that it is the case.

The second, more likely scenario is that BB simply does NO training and employees feel the need to make something up so as to appear that they know what they are talking about. (Or they actually believe what they are saying, but have had no formal training.)

Reminds me of William Hung....

"I have no professional training in singing..."

At least Hung didn't BS as much as those BB folks who make up crap along the way.

:rolleyes: Oh, because that makes a lot of sense...

I dislike BB for this as well as other reasons.

I got so tired of hearing that "they don't work on commission" that I finally confronted one of these clowns and said "So, since you don't work on commission, you must not care if I buy anything at all, right?

And he said, "Yes that is right."

After he thought about his response he skulked his way out of my sight.

The RZ program is run by Best Buy, unlike the BB credit card. The RZ customer service line, on which I work, is outsourced.

I don't think that BB actually trains their reps on RZ, and it is what you describe, the reps just trying to appear like they know something. I actually had one rep call me tonight and ask me questions about the program, which I was very impressed with. That's one less rep who will tell the customer "Oh, you'll get those certificates in about three weeks" when it's actually 6-8 week from the purchase date.

There seems to be such a push to sell the new thing that a lot of the time what starts as a great idea or training from the corp office never gets all the way to the employees. This doesn't seem to be a fault of the corporate offices', but rather the fault of the fact that the company has so many employees than it did say 5 or 10 years ago.

I view this in the similarities to the education system of our country. The teachers only have so much alotted time to teach oversized classes that they end up not really teaching (or the students not really learning) much at all.

The boycott continues...
 

After a six month boycott, i stepped in to a BB B&M looking at a nice Direct View TV, the Sony KD-34XBR960.

One guy helped me, but didn't know the product, saying they've only had XBR for a week, so he passed me on to a "Team Leader" who was talking on the phone to his boxx and asked me to wait. After five minutes I was ready to leave since I've been down that road before, and was skeptical he could even help. He apologized and showed me the floor model. When I told him I wanted to order one with the matching Sony Stand, he spent another ten minutes looking it up on the computer and got another blue shirt to help him.

At the end, he said he didn't have the matching stand, didn't know if they would carry it, and invited me to purchase the stand elsewhere. The price he quoted me for the TV? $2200 which is $1.00 over MSRP.

I politely let him know I could find that price anywhere since it was full list price, and that some dealers will give you a break on the Stand when purchasing both TV and Stand. Also SonyStyle offers the same unit, free shipping, in-home installation, zero percent financing through March 2006, a $400 rebate when combined with an HT Package, a backpack, and four DVD's. The Best Buy guy said he had financing, but couldn't match any internet deal.

After giving him plenting of opportunities to close the deal, I just walked out, happy I didn't spend any $$$ at Best Buy.

IMO, It's easy just boycotting best buy B&M and spending my money with other vendors.

Re: The boycott continues...
 

So you're complaining because Best Buy wouldn't bargain with you? I don't see anything wrong with your experience aside from a little waiting, which isn't too bad. They were honest with you, tried to help you, but couldn't offer you a deal. This isn't a used car lot where the employees will throw freebies at you and cut prices. Unless there's a sale, it doesn't surprise me that something is MSRP either.

If you interpreted my post as a complaint, so be it. I did not mean to complain though; rather I just wanted to reiterate how happy I am not spending money at Best Buy.

Not spending money there because they wouldn't cut you a deal on a TV...

Everyone has choices.

While SonyStyle offers zero payments until March 2006, a $400 rebate w/HT purchase, DVD's, and free premier in-home delivery, BB didn't have the matching XBR stand, and didn't know if they'd even carry it.

I didn't ask or expect a discount, but I did inform them of what's available with other vendors. Since BB didn't offer any incentives to purchase the TV, the stand or have either item in stock, I didn't feel compelled to place an order. At full MSRP, one should be able to find that price anywhere, anytime right?

For some people, their choice is Best Buy.

Is it wrong to expect a better deal than MSRP at a store called "Best Buy" or is the name just more of the advertising/marketing BS that Tarantino and Josh keep talking about?

Not necessarily, but i dont go around thinking "Good Guys" must be filled with incredibly kind hearted workers either or that "Circuit City" is literally a mini city composed entirely of circuitry.

Heffalump came off is somewhat smug in his post, hence it sounded like a complaint. You "giving him a chance to close the deal" seems rather ridiculous to me.

Hahahaha

:lol: actually I went into K-Mart last week and I was shocked to see that they were all out of K's.

Sounds like Roger Clemmens...

[Brian]Ba-Zing![/Brian]

Recently every time I buy 3 for $20 dvds the employee always tries to charge full price. I have to tell them that the movies are on sale. It has happened on 3 different occasions to either me or my wife. They use 3 for $20 deal to get people inside their doors in the hopes of selling more expenses items, but sense they can't charge the right price I now just purchase at bestbuy.com and have them pay to ship it to me.

We have purchased a Sony vaio, 24 inch TV(spare room), Creative 30GB MP3 player and countless dvds. I only shop there if it is an amazing deal and beats all online prices. I am glad that BB is in business. I am glad that Wally and CC and BB compete against each other in my town because that is what keeps prices low. I am even more happy that last year I spent 7 grand on new HT equipment and BB did not get one red cent! I researched what I wanted for months and found that BB B&M was useless. They were no more knowledgeable than I and their prices where 30 to 40% higher than online. Convenience and speed plus easy returns would be the only reason to shop at BB B&M IMHO.

I would stay away from NYC if I were you. The same stores are continually losing their lease and having going out of business sales.

ok here's my Bestbuy story...

It was about a week after christmas last year and my friends had heard me talking about a pc game called Beyond Good and Evil because i had tried the demo and liked it. They got it for me for christmas at best buy. Well that game for pc happened to have a bug a ways into it that would not let you go any further because a Keycard would get stuck in the celing and you could not get it to continue on. I searched ubisofts website and lo and behold they had no plans of Fixing this bug. Well my friends had misplaced the receipt. I took the game to best buy, waited in line at CS and when i got there i explained about the bug and that the game maker wasn't going to fix it. Without even missing a beat she issued me a Refund on an OPENED GAME WITH NO RECEIPT. Those bastards :mad: I expected much less from them than good customer service.

Seriously though I did have 1 bad experience that i can remember in all the years i've been using best buy. I went to the Car stereo department during one of those "Any indash cdplayer at 99.99 and over is free installation" Well i found a 99.99 player and asked the person working the department and he told me that it would be 50 dollars for the installation (and yes i know parts are extra, he meant 50 dollars on top of the parts. Mounting kit, wiring harness etc.) I pointed to the sigh hanging right off the stereo i had picked that said the free installation. He seriously started yelling at me telling me i'm crazy and that it was not true. I found someone else in that department and told them about it. They started defending the employee saying he was new and everything. I was upset... So upset that i went to Circuit City and spent 100 dollars there instead (as they usually run the same deal on stereos at the same time as best buy). Since it was an isolated incident then i can let it go. They don't exactly have a shithead test to put some of these people they hire under to see if they are Shitheads before hiring them. For the most part the bb employees are pretty good around here.

The only questions you should ever ask a Best Buy employee are "Where is the bathroom?" and "Can I talk to a manager?"