Travis McClain

The problem seems to be that those supporting the OP believe that the fact he did not walk into Best Buy to consciously interfere with a potential transaction mitigates the effect his actions had (or potentially could have had). That cables are overpriced is irrelevant. Every business has some items priced with a low profit margin, designed to entice consumers. These are theoretically off-set by other products with higher profit margins. If you want to continue getting Burn Notice - Season One for $12.99 at Best Buy (like I did this week), then someone needs to buy some overpriced Monster cables, plain and simple. You can't cost Best Buy its sales of cables and then bemoan the lack of discount on Burn Notice when they quit offering it. That's not evil, corporate greed needing to be challenged by righteous consumers; that's basic economics. And somehow, I have no doubt that the same people who view the OP's acts as "good" will view Best Buy as "ripping them off" by not offering discounted prices on other items.

dbashaggy

I think that what was telling is that the OP said the other customer had that look that not only didn't she know what was going on, but had an idea she may be getting ripped off. The OP picked up on that (he said it's something he rarely does), and tried to help out. If the manager isn't a good enough salesman to overcome that, too bad. He had plenty of opportunity to make the sale, and get a sale from the OP as well. The OP was not being a re-occurring menace to the business (in which case the manager would be well within his right to react in such a manner), at least from what the OP has said here. If I had been there and heard him talk to the OP like that (assuming the OP is mostly accurate in his account), I definitely would have spoken up about the manager's abilities. I am not shy about that. But that wouldn't happen, because I don't go in BB very often except to buy very specific things, or to use them to get a lower price at another store. They should hate people like me more than people like the OP.

beesonosu

But they're getting YOUR money when you enter the store! They are effectively taking you "out of the market". Sure, you're price-matching, waiting for good deals, but there's still at least a bit of profit to be made and they're getting your money as opposed to the competition. I guarantee you they'd take you as a customer over the OP every time.

I

DVD Polizei

Ok, let's take a look at this statement, because you're effectively talking about two different types of businesses here. You have one business which is operated locally, and are not corporate, and support the local community by being fair to their employees and don't have the corporate mentality. They scrape by and don't see "profit" as the only bottom line, and have some sort of morality left in the workplace. They are honest with their consumers because these consumers are a brother of somebody they know, or a sister, or a mother, etc. In other words, there is respect. There is loyalty. And yeah, these places have slightly higher prices but they in turn give you much more one on one than any corporate store would. And these places don't sell you shit you don't need. They let YOU DECIDE WHAT YOU WANT TO BUY. They accept your money. Give you your receipt...and welcome you back again.

Let's take a look at Best Buy. Why in thee oh fuck do we have Best Buy employees on here even giving a rat's ass about Best Buy and defending the corporate mentality. Seriously, folks. I can't think of anyone more naive. BB would drop your employed asses so fast, you'd be left spinning on the hard floor of the store, thinking you were break dancing to an 80's song. Can we say...CIRCUIT CITY? Best Buy is no different. They don't care about you and they certainly don't care about what you're selling. They just care about how MUCH of it you're selling. Revenue and margin. Tarantino should be familiar with this. Best Buy wants to sell you as much shit as possible, without even caring if you KNOW HOW TO OPERATE IT. If you don't...well I'm sure the Geeks can do it...for a fee of course...

So, with all do apologies to Tarantino for possibly offending him, he really shouldn't be defending a place who would drop his ass in a second and treat their employees like leftovers. If he worked for a mom and pop store, I'd understand where he was coming from, because THEN I'd understand the situation a little more. A guy comes into a local store who is barely making ends meet, and is telling consumers there to go somewhere else. I would empathize more with this situation, but when we're talking about Best Buy, a corporation who sees their employees as merely numbers and pawns in a game to get the most profits, I can't defend people who work at places like this.

And if you guys who work at places like Best Buy, I have to ask you something. Why the hell do you people act like it's YOUR STORE? It's not. You are barely noticed by this corporation. They have your SS# so you can get paid, and that's it. They could give two flying fucks about you. Tomorrow you could be wiped from their payrolls and they could care less. Why even worry about other people talking to other consumers in the store? What the hell does it matter to you? Consumers at places like Best Buy are not loyal. They come in once and buy and leave. So, why do you people feel like you belong to some kind of comradery outfit, when you're getting absolutely no benefits from such an outfit. You get paid shit. You work shitty hours so you can't have a balanced lifestyle unless your still in your teens (unless you're proven to be "productive"--then you can set your own hours). You don't get holidays off--if rarely. Your benefits suck total ass. I could go on. I'm absolutely amazed at how "loyal" some Best Buy-type employees can be to their corporate employers when there is absolutely no justified reason to be.

So, if you work at Best Buy...just work there. Don't worry about what another consumer says to another. If they are infringing on other consumers in a way which is unwanted, then you can promptly kick them out. It's your call. But if two consumers are talking to each other, and one is talking bad about your store, you shouldn't worry about it. It will take care of itself. If the consumer really likes Best Buy, they will come back, regardless of the little speach by a person who says something negative.

If you people worked for stores who were owned locally and operated by generations of a family, I'd totally have more respect for your opinions, but when somebody comes on here and defends places like Best Buy, it just shows how a person is so naive to think the place they work for...actually cares about them or even respects them. You have to earn my respect, and Best Buy has far from proven it. They've fucked up so many orders in the past, I can't tell you how frustrated I've been. So, I don't shop their hardly anymore. I buy from Amazon. Amazon has screwed up about two orders out of maybe 100, but they readily take care of the problem, and this is over the goddamn phone. I have more problems with Best Buy IN PERSON than I do with Amazon over the phone. So, this should tell you something.

Travis McClain

So, by that logic, you would ask in a murder trial, "What kind of person are we talking about?" Either something is right, or it's wrong. I can allow for context to a certain point, but I fail to see how the nature of the business affected is relevant. My family owned and operated its own business for 20 years, and when we closed shop (largely because my health made me unreliable), only a few of us had to adapt. When Circuit City went down, thousands were left unemployed.

I cannot understand the animosity that you display in the rest of your post toward Best Buy employees, especially when much of it is predicated on taking pride in their work and presenting a sense of commitment to it. Are those not the very values you claim to respect in a business? Does the faceless nature of the person writing their check somehow invalidate their own work ethic?

It tells me that your bad local experiences are the basis for your anti-corporate doctrine. And, I should tell you, that even though my transaction with you probably mattered more to me than it does to the guy at Best Buy, you should not mistake that for thinking that you, personally, mattered more to me than you do to him. I made an effort to foster the impression that I cared about our regulars, but the truth is that when I wasn't actually in that building, none of them ever even crossed my mind. The only difference is that I personally handled the money that put food on my table, and because of this I cared more about how much of it I got from you.

old-boo-radley

And, the money the lady saved put more food on her table.

"You can have anything you want, but you better not take it from me..."

Jah-Wren Ryel

It's tribalism. It's in the genes. It's just another expression of the same instincts that play havoc in so many third world countries and make people so passionate about sports teams and political parties. And because it is in the genes you've got practically no chance of convincing a member of the tribe of the error of their ways.

FWIW, I agree with your earlier post - the OP's education of the other customer was not a problem, it was an opportunity for the salesman to inform her of the total value she was receiving in exchange for the higher pricing (one-stop shopping, one-stop troubleshooting, immediate gratification, service by native english speakers, direct accountability by local management, etc).

If a store relies on the ignorance of its customers rather than providing value to its customers, it's going to have all kinds of problems and one customer talking to another customer in the aisles will be the least of them. Word gets out one way or another, that's partly what did Circuit City in - customers ultimately felt that CC didn't provide enough value for the dollar, so they took their dollars elsewhere.

In other words, a good store should have no problem at all with customers discussing pricing with other customers because a good store sells value while a bad store simply gouges.

DVD Polizei

So, why are we disagreeing. I'm sure your family's business was much more responsible than Circuit City, no? Had a better personal connection with their customers?

I don't have animosity towards BB employees. You don't understand. Best Buy employees should do their job. Where does it say in BB Policy that they have to personally get involved with customers to the point where they drive them away? Yeah, I thought so. They should be doing something else more productive than taking on situations which will not benefit anyone but their own personal naive sense of importance to a corporation.

So, you're saying all you cared about is the money you received from customers, versus actually caring about what kind of information and service you gave them. Because hey, you had to feed your face.

That's interesting, and pretty much proves my point. Let me know if I misdiagnosed this.

When I was in retail, I made goddamn sure the business I worked in reflected WHAT I DID OUTSIDE OF MY JOB as well. People respected me, and I had one hell of a clientele.

Travis McClain

Well, except for my uncle....The reason we're disagreeing is that I read your post to say, "Mom and pop stores are good because their employees are dedicated, and dedicated employees working for corporate stores are morons." I read your pro-Amazon/anti-Best Buy remarks to indicate you are simply awaiting the day that Best Buy closes its doors so you can gloat, and I object to the notion that anyone really wins when any business closes its doors--which is the inevitable outcome if consumers such as yourself abandon Best Buy and those such as the OP direct would-be buyers elsewhere.

Again, though, we're only discussing one solitary BB manager. It is unfair--and likely unrealistic--to lay the fault you find in him at the feet of all of his corporation-wide coworkers. In my first remarks in this thread, I acknowledged that he missed a prime opportunity to intervene to spin his company's image. And, remember, he likely did not see his actions as chasing off a consumer, but rather trying to maintain a claim on the other consumer--and chasing off a person who was actively chasing off one of his consumers. He was not trying to chase off a consumer, but instead responding to a an anti-consumer presence.

Make no mistake; I, too, have done my job professionally and honestly wherever I have worked. I have never misled anyone to make a buck off them, and when we could not provide something I did not hesitate to offer suggestions among our competitors. I even occasionally opened the phone book and put our consumers on our phone with a competitor to aid their quest. And while I did not, my mom and grandmother even attended a funeral or two over the years. The chief lesson I learned from working for my family's business was the importance of how one is seen outside of the business environment, and this is one that too many corporate employees do not learn, because they feel too detached from their employers to take on such a sense of responsibility. I know that many of our customers would have balked at seeing any of us in public with foul mouths or unbecoming behavior and would not have returned to us.

Even now, two years after closing our doors, I will periodically encounter a former customer in public. Invariably, they ask how we're doing, whether we miss running the place, etc. It's always the same thing, followed by a courteous inquiry into how my health has been (if they were talkative enough for us to ever get to the subject of my developing Crohn's disease), I counter with asking them how whatever the last thing I recall they were into was progressing (new marriage, new job, new home, etc.). Then, we go our separate ways. I don't lie in bed at night wondering about them, and I cannot fathom the arrogance required to believe they wonder about me.

jjcool

I find this line very interesting. And a very valid point.

jjcool

This past Monday, my father asked me to go look at tvs with him on Saturday. Knowing my father, I fully expected this to be a fact finding trip to several stores to come up with some model numbers to be researched later, so I didnt think about ordering cables from monoprice. Come Saturday, we go to our local tv and appliance shop. Both of us know that pricing may be better at our local Best Buy. We met our regualr salesman that we have been doing business with for about 20 years. Ended up walking out of there with a new tv, dvd recorder, and blue ray player. We both knew we could get the stuff for cheaper elsewhere, but the service we get from the local store is worht it to us. Regarding the cables that we bought, the salesman cut us a break on them, but we still paid more than we would have from monoprice, but we also got to set up the tv that day to watch the baseball game. To us, that was worth the extra cost.

Back to the topic at hand, I still dont think the OP did anything wrong. Everything is available somewhere else for cheaper. It is a simple fact of a free market economy. Whether you can get it for that price at the exact instant you want to is what is up in the air. There was also nothing wrong with the way the manager reacted to the OP. As an agent of the parent company, it his "his" private property, and he can remove anyone for any reason. Of course he could have handled the situation differently, and, in my opinion, better. Numerous possibilities abound such as dropping the price on the cables, explaining that the customer can have them today to set up their system right away, etc.
When I was a manager at a music/electronics store that combination of lowering the price and emphasizing the "inhand-edness" worked 99% of the time. And it also bred customer loyalty, which is always crucial.

Tarantino

1. I'm not offended.
2. I never defended Best Buy in the first place. I was questioning the situation that the manager walked into.
3. You call Best Buy a corporate evil that could fire me/replace me at any time. Honestly, that's any job. I call Best Buy the company that I work for, that pays me (quite well, with some good benefits), that in turn allows me to put food on my table and put a roof over my head. No shame in that. If you can't respect me because I work at Best Buy, that's your own problem.
4. I DO feel like the store I work at is "my store", because I've worked there since it opened. I consistently have customers coming back in asking for myself or others by name (repeat, loyal shoppers, which you claimed don't exist). I'm sure there are people who aren't loyal at all. There are in all businesses.

Not all Best Buy stores are like the one that apparently raped your mother while you watched, and it's too bad you've had so much trouble with yours. I've got a list of clientele myself that love my store.

= J

fumanstan

Isn't holding on to the attitude that Best Buy employees, and other big retail store employees, shouldn't give two shits about the company and what customers do inside the store the reason why service is bad? That seems like a terrible thing to tell people. Isn't it a good thing that there are employees that care? Seems awfully backwards to me.

DVD Polizei

FYI, it's not just one Best Buy store. It's several. We're talking Oregon and Washington stores. I've only had one store out of like 6 which were respectable. But soon, that changed as well. Lasted maybe 3 months and then management changed. Haha. Like that surprises me.

Your post sounded like you did defend Best Buy. And your post here seems like it as well. Nothing wrong with that, but like I said, I fail to see the loyalty justification. Maybe you're too young enough to have actually worked for a locally-owned store as so many have been RAPED by corporate monsters as they move into communities. Customer service has basically vanished, and has been left with kids who memorize memos like a Sunday Baptist Church meeting.

As to #3, I guess my paragraph above responds to that.

I didn't necesarily say customer loyalty is absent in stores where you work. But you might call it loyalty or just pure ignorance. I know how loyalty in many retail chains is basically keeping customers naive and uninformed about the choices they make and what other options are available to them. I know Best Buy isn't in the business to gain customer loyalty in general. They're in it for the profits. You might respond by saying isn't any business, but I'd say not really. Profits are great, but you also have to have respect for your customer. This is virtually disappeared from retail chains, and they have replaced it with shady selling tactics and even purposely keep their sales staff uninformed about price mistakes just to get more customers in the door. Hell, let the kids at the checkout stand deal with irate customers. Corporate won't have to. And when the very small percentage who do manage to contact corporate, get a gift card and are sent on their merry way. But the tactics remain.

DVD Polizei

In my experience you crush perceptions of the public by actually doing the opposite of what you're negatively accused of. Consistent positive action will negate the bad perceptions. In other words, the stigma wouldn't exist...if it didn't exist.

fumanstan

Oh, so you're actually motivating people. I see.

bsmith

I clarified it to make sure there was no miscommunication, but in either case I answered your question for which I take it you have no further response.

bsmith

You can call it what ever you want, but there are plenty that take the approach of trying to provide better service at a better price and don't need to take an aggressive approach when they fail to do so.

As for your other comment, why do you persist in trying to talk for others? I believe everyone here is more then capable of debating this honestly without you telling them what they really think.

DVD Polizei

Huh? I never said I was motivating anybody. I just gave examples of how I ran a store, how I dealt with competition, and how others should deal with their competition. Motivation has nothing to do with this. Respect for your customer...does. If you respect them...they come back.

You don't get loyalty by simply beating your competitor's price. This is the #1 mistake retail chains are making and they are going bankrupt by doing this to each other.

fumanstan

You said "In my experience you crush perceptions of the public by actually doing the opposite of what you're negatively accused of." This was in response to me saying that you telling people not to give two shits about the company you work for was backwards, so I assumed the negative accusations were your own.

I don't care how you ran a store or if you think you're better then Best Buy employees, just that telling others to not care about their job because of their employer is stupid.

cdollaz

Guess Walmart didn't get the memo.

bsmith

Just ask Circuit City. Some will obviously survive while others fall.

Travis McClain

To be fair, Walmart did something along the way that has really helped ensure consumer loyalty. They built stores in more rural areas where there were few real competitors. They have entered more urban areas in the last decade or so, but they have done so not only stragetically (tending to favor the more suburban areas of town), but they have done so as their inventory has expanded to be more competitive with the department stores already in existence there.

dbashaggy

I understand what everyone has been saying about whether a retailer deserves customer loyalty, or, right to the heart of this thread, whether it is ethical to basically take a sale away from a retailer in their store. I still stand by my feelings, which is the only thing that a manager is going to get by threatening customers (which the OP WAS) is less loyal customers. And as I have said before, if the manager is not good enough to overcome objections to a sale (in spite of, in the case of managers at places like BB, training, orientations, role playing, sales demonstrations, and a whole list of training documents), then that person should not be in sales, nor a manager of a retail establishment. I could have parried all the comments the OP made to the prospective buyer quite adequately without much of that training, as many here probably could as well. Maybe not sold some cables, but the OP would have still bought something.

dbashaggy

Walmart's business plan involves more than just beating the competition's price, though that is part of it.