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 You remember Best Buy, right? That big building by the shopping mall with all the cool stuff? Some of you remember making your mom drive you there so you can spend your life savings on a Voodoo graphics card so you could get Doom II up and running. Others may be former employees, working nights and weekends during high school so you could buy your first car, then quit in a rage after you couldn't sign enough people up for America Online and got your hours cut. Well, the world moved on. You grew up, discovered Newegg and Momoprice and didn't need us anymore. But we're still here. Yup, I work for Best Buy. I can answer most question offhand or find out after a day or two. With all of your recent misfortunes being covered so thoroughly in the press, I thought enough people would be curious about who we are and what I do to support a A/T thread. To be specific I work in a department called Consumer Relations at the corporate offices in Richfield, MN. We handle escalated issues for customers as well as complaints against stores. Everything from return policy exceptions, to stores banning customers to getting a customers order unfucked. It can be dull work, but it's usually challenging enough to be different then a normal call center job. Bonus: We can issue gift cards to unhappy customers. For those of you playing at home, here's a recap of what's happened to Best Buy in the past year or so: First, there was this guy:  That guy, Brian "Brooks and" Dunn took over from this guy, Richard "The Schulze" Schulze:  I actually met Brian Dunn on Black Friday 2011. Nice guy, had a handshake like a ox. Dunn announced a round of layoffs in April of 2012, sending everyone into a panic mode. A few days later, on my day off, I'm eating breakfast in a Original Pancake House when CNBC breaks the news of Dunn leaving the company. All we're told is that it was a mutual decision, and are given nothing more then that. That's one thing I want to point out too. We rarely get news about whats going on in our company from our company. The Star Tribune and the NY Times are our best source of whats happening next with Best Buy. Our PR departments motto? "No comment". Anyway, after Dunn heads for the hills, the Star Trib breaks a story that he was getting it on with a female staffer, using company funds to pay for vacations with her to the Philippines and all kinds of hanky-pankey. Meantime, we're laying off people left and right and shutting down a third of our stores coast-to-coast. Then, in June we find out that Schulze, the chairman of the board and the company's founder, resigns after a investigation reveals that Schulze knew about what Dunn was doing and didn't tell anyone. So now we're CEO-less, the company is in disarray, nobody knows what the hell is going on and our stock price craps the bed. Finally after a "world-wide" search we dig up the New Guy, Hubert Joly (pronounced 'Uber 'Oly with a snooty accent):  This guy came from nowhere, no one heard of him before he came to us. Supposedly he used to manage Carlson Hospitality, the guys who run TGI Fridays. He did bring back our employee discount, so he's got that going for him. Then, Steven Gillett, our CIO who came to us from Starbucks and was largely hailed as our saving grace, takes off for Symentec without much advance notice. Not good. Finally, Schulze, the ousted Chairman of the Board and the companys founder, is looking to buy out the shareholders and take the company private. He's been reviewing documents for a few months now, and the strong rumor is that he'll make a offer next month sometime. If the offer is accepted, it could be our best chance of saving the company from ruin. If it's rejected, we're probably doomed. Stay tuned! So, please, ask away! I'll try to post a few horror stories, and give a better explanation of the call center structure later on. EDIT: oh cmon! Where did the poo poo post tag come from?! BigDave fucked around with this message at Jan 20, 2013 around 18:26 |
| # ? Jan 20, 2013 18:24 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 03:50 |
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So how sure are you you'll still have a job next week?
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 18:33 |
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Junior G-man posted:So how sure are you you'll still have a job next week? ...pretty sure.
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 18:35 |
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Are there certain regions of the US that seem to generate the most complaints?
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 19:23 |
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How the hell can they justify a $50 installation fee for a $49 CD deck?
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 19:47 |
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Do best buys still try to shove magazine subscriptions and warranties down the customers throats? If so do they know that it is very unappealing to most of their customers?
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 20:12 |
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Who was the worst customer you ever had to deal with?
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 20:15 |
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Is there actually a rivalry between Best Buy and hhgregg? When I worked at hhgregg, we kept hearing about all this bad blood between the two companies from management, always laughing at Best Buy employees and the company as a whole. Is it nonexistent or is this true? I never gave a poo poo, but I'm curious I suppose.
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 21:13 |
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canyoneer posted:Are there certain regions of the US that seem to generate the most complaints? Not especially. But region is often a pretty good indicator of the level of a customers anger. If a customer calls in from the wildernesses of Michigan, I know I'm in for a rough time. Calling from Indianapolis or Madison? Piece of cake. Having said that, gently caress UPSTATE NEW YORK AND LONG ISLAND! If a customer is even ten miles north of the city, they're gonna be total pricks. Every time. the posted:How the hell can they justify a $50 installation fee for a $49 CD deck? Simple. We know you'll pay it.  johnny sack posted:Do best buys still try to shove magazine subscriptions and warranties down the customers throats? Not so much magazines, but warranty's are definitely the cornerstone of our business. When you buy a $2000 LED TV that's on sale, know how much money we make? -$40. Most name brand devices we sell are sold either at cost, with a very slim profit margin or sold at a loss to have a competitive price. It's the add ons, the cables and remotes and other accessories that actually generate enough money to allow us to remain in business. If you buy a warranty on a TV for $249.99 and never end up needing it, we keep the money. I remember someone ran the numbers on extended warranty's and the profit margin was something like 900%. Think of it like this. You know how most clothing retailers make more money on their in-store credit cards then they do selling clothing? The Gap is a credit card company that sell clothing. Best Buy is a warranty company that sells electronics. Lurken posted:Who was the worst customer you ever had to deal with? surprise sex Man, no doubt about it. surprise sex Man called in from the wild mountains of Edgewood, California and had a voice like a serial killer. Thickly accented with a smokers cough and slurring his words like a battle hardened alcoholic, surprise sex Man wanted to return a laptop to the Redding store without showing a picture ID. Most things we can make exceptions for, but if you want to return a item to a Best Buy store, we need a picture ID to track the return. No override, no nothing. When the store manager told him this, he didn't take it too kindly. He took it upon himself to call us and tell us what he was going to do to the manager.
He finally disconnected, and he had enough info about him to flash his profile so he couldn't call in again without being transferred to a voicemail box we use for that purpose. I quit smoking a few years ago, but after that call I bummed one off of a co-worker. Sometimes chewing gum just doesn't cut it. corpsed posted:Is there actually a rivalry between Best Buy and hhgregg? When I worked at hhgregg, we kept hearing about all this bad blood between the two companies from management, always laughing at Best Buy employees and the company as a whole. Is it nonexistent or is this true? I never gave a poo poo, but I'm curious I suppose. Not really. I had never heard about them until I started working here and a customer threatened to shop with them instead. I got the impression they're mostly on the East Coast.
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| # ? Jan 20, 2013 22:13 |
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Why do so many incompetent people work at the "Geek Squad" desk? Not only do they charge absurd diagnosis fees, they just plain don't know what they're doing. I took my desktop in ~8 years ago or so to get fixed when I was much more naive and assumed they knew what they were doing. About a week later I went in and they said they figured out the problem but were still running some post-repair routines or something, and it would be ready the next day. I heard the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next...after almost a week I went in and just demanded they give it back, and it worked fine. The problem? A stick of RAM was knocked loose. Also they left their repair disc in it. My parents have also used them in the past several times as well, and it is never a good experience. They also refuse to answer simple questions like "do you sell a fan/heatsink compatible with (whatever) laptop" and/or just advice on how to open the laptop up to do such a repair without you paying them 80 dollars to look at it, but I assume that is more stupid company policy than incompetence. I guess my overall question for your job in particular is, what percentage of the complaints you receive would you estimate come from that horrible department? Murphy Brownback fucked around with this message at Jan 20, 2013 around 22:24 |
| # ? Jan 20, 2013 22:18 |
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Hey, I used to work at Best Buy. I sold appliances there for 2 years. Why, yes, Best Buy sells appliances. No, actual appliances. Like, refrigerators and stoves and air conditioners. The department is located on the other side of the store from Computers, near Car-Fi. Yeah, that's why you've never seen it.  In all honesty, I haven't been in a Best Buy since I quit like 3 years ago. I don't even know if they do sell appliances, but I'd be happy to answer questions about that level of work within the company. There was a surprising amount of work that went into creating and maintaining orders and displays for that department. EDIT: Murphy Brownback posted:Why do so many incompetent people work at the "Geek Squad" desk? Not only do they charge absurd diagnosis fees, they just plain don't know what they're doing. I took my desktop in ~8 years ago or so to get fixed when I was much more naive and assumed they knew what they were doing. About a week later I went in and they said they figured out the problem but were still running some post-repair routines or something, and it would be ready the next day. I heard the same thing the next day, and the next, and the next...after almost a week I went in and just demanded they give it back, and it worked fine. The problem? A stick of RAM was knocked loose. Also they left their repair disc in it. My parents have also used them in the past several times as well, and it is never a good experience. They also refuse to answer simple questions like "do you sell a fan/heatsink compatible with (whatever) laptop" without you paying them 80 dollars to look at it, but I assume that is more stupid company policy than incompetence. Make no mistake, Geek Squad only wants to appear to know what they're doing. Their computer "work" amounts to running a CD with a few utility programs on it that does basic diagnostic work, maybe some antivirus, and that's about it. As far as the physical stuff, like your stick of RAM is concerned, they either usually have one guy that actually knows what the gently caress he's talking about, or they browse HP, Dell, Windows, etc. forums for answers. That $80 fee to look at it? That $200 cost to remove a virus? All that amounts to is one guy booting up your computer and running a program off a disc. And I know this after nearly working in that department. I decided not to after I found out I'd need to push Norton and Mcafee at people, and I just can't bring myself to do that. Don't get me wrong, there's some cool guys that end up working in Geek Squad, just like in any other department, but if you can sell the antivirus programs and get the other add-ons, you don't have to know poo poo about computers to work there. After proof reading that, I guess that comes off as jaded and angry. It's all true though. neogeo0823 fucked around with this message at Jan 20, 2013 around 22:30 |
| # ? Jan 20, 2013 22:21 |
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I'm actually currently working for geek squad as a remote support agent, so I figured I'd offer a little bit of defense on their behalf - although I definitely agree that the in store people are generally less than fantastic. More than a few times I've had to fix their work in one way or another... The online agents are generally a much better deal and a great deal more competent on the average - a lot of my coworkers do remote support as a side job while doing other IT work as a main line of income. 98/100 customers that I get already have the tech support subscription that they're sold with their computer, so they don't get charged anything for any work I do. Even if they don't have a tech support subscription, all diagnostics are free. The customers seem pretty happy overall with the service in general - considering that I've generally fixed the issue in less time than what it would take to even drag the computer to a Best Buy, I wouldn't see why they wouldn't be pleased. I almost never do any sort of sales either - the pressure is only to get things fixed quickly and permanently. I'd say that within the limits imposed by remote desktop control, Geek Squad is actually a pretty decent bet for most people. Of course, that doesn't help matters very much when it turns out to be a dying hard drive or some other hardware issue. The biggest negative to the job is some people's insistence on not caring what they leave open or prominently displayed on their desktop - so much porn. So very very much porn.
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| # ? Jan 21, 2013 00:24 |
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Thread closed due to rule number 6.
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| # ? Jan 21, 2013 01:03 |
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I'm reopening the thread. OP works in corporate, rather than one of a million guys wearing a blue shirt. I'm willing to make an exception as long as it stays interesting.
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| # ? Jan 21, 2013 22:58 |
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Not sure how much you'd know about this, but are most people in corporate fresh college grads? Former Best Buy salespeople? People with other retail experience? Basically, how do you get into corporate?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 06:58 |
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I'm reopening the thread. OP works in corporate, rather than one of a million guys wearing a blue shirt. I'm willing to make an exception as long as it stays interesting. This really shows a disconnect. How people in one area can know one thing and talk about it. Where people in another area who are completely affected by it have to wait for some guy.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 08:20 |
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Why did you ever think that constantly pushing PSP's on customers was ever a good idea? At my store, we had to offer it during the sale, then again at the checkout, then while we "set up" your pc (I worked in services fixing computers), the service tech was expected to offer it, then on the way, the LP guy offered it one last time. I saw more than one customer just abandon the purchase, or simply return it right there on the spot. Surely corporate couldn't have been so loving detached that this actually seemed like a good idea. What were you people thinking?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 08:33 |
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I recall years back purchasing a Sega 32X to stack on my Genesis system and it unfortunately was defective. I only got sound out of games, no video. I returned the product and was given a proper hassle to even get it on the counter. A week later, returning to the store with credit, I saw the exact same Sega 32X box [I know because I had ripped a portion of the labeling off] on the shelves again. My question is, is it common at Best Buy to take in a return known to be defective, and attempt to re-sell it? Also, do the 'security guards' actually go through any actual training? I've never seen them so much as help customers out the door with heavy items.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 16:02 |
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indoflaven posted:This really shows a disconnect. How people in one area can know one thing and talk about it. Where people in another area who are completely affected by it have to wait for some guy. Im not sure what you are getting at. We dont need individual threads about ask me about working for Target, ask me about working for Kohls, etc. Im sorry, but they are boring, plus we already have places where people can bitch about working in retail. Not all jobs are equally interesting and worthy of threads, we are not all special snowflakes. Perhaps this is unfair; life is unfair.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 16:20 |
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BigDave posted:Finally, Schulze, the ousted Chairman of the Board and the companys founder, is looking to buy out the shareholders and take the company private. He's been reviewing documents for a few months now, and the strong rumor is that he'll make a offer next month sometime. If the offer is accepted, it could be our best chance of saving the company from ruin. If it's rejected, we're probably doomed. Stay tuned! Do you think there's actually a workable plan for turning the company around buried somewhere up his sleeve, or is the hope just that a cash infusion will allow the company to keep limping on for a little while longer before it collapses?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 17:23 |
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BigDave posted:
How did the business model actually end up working? I mean according to your op it seems the answer is "it doesn't", but to become a large chain store it had to have worked at one point? Was there just a time when people thought warranties where a good idea? Lack of competition? Also does this business model mean from a client[cheap bastard] perspective you should get a game system from best buy, just go get the peripherals else where? KildarX fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2013 around 17:31 |
| # ? Jan 22, 2013 17:29 |
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Zeta Taskforce posted:I’m not sure what you are getting at. We don’t need individual threads about ask me about working for Target, ask me about working for Kohls, etc. I’m sorry, but they are boring, plus we already have places where people can bitch about working in retail. Not all jobs are equally interesting and worthy of threads, we are not all special snowflakes. Perhaps this is unfair; life is unfair. The way I read into what he was saying, is that he's not particularly happy that the thread would be closed while there's possibly admin/mod discussion as to what's going on with the thread - but the people who want to post and read, are left in the dark, and just have put up with a closed thread until it may or may not be reopened.. Not trying to argue at all - just my interpretation of his post!
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 17:30 |
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I bought a Kindle at bestbuy last year and not only did I have to verbally deny the service plan, but I had to SIGN A FORM stating I didn't want it. I've never been back to bestbuy since... is this masterstroke still being implemented? WHY??
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 18:08 |
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BigDave posted:Simple. We know you'll pay it. Does it ever occur to anyone there that this is exactly why the company is in such deep poo poo and that more and more people are aware that warranty's are a giant waste of money? I'm well aware that this is how Best Buy operates and therefore the only thing I've purchased there over the past five years has been my $400 1080P 47" that I got last Christmas, after the guy was literally screaming at me over my chorus of "no thank you" to his long spiel of warranties and trying to change my mobile provider. It's sitting in my living room now hooked up to to nice monoprice cables on a nice monoprice mount. Funny thing is that I have many friends who are not technically inclined with the same sort of set ups, without prompting from me or anyone else. BTW Monoprice has free lifetime warranties on basically everything they sell, and they have been phenomenal the one time I needed something sent back. 
Benjamin Disraeli fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2013 around 18:24 |
| # ? Jan 22, 2013 18:22 |
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Is corporate full of a bunch of people who fervently support your god-loving-awful marketing approaches? Like are there people chatting excitedly amongst themselves in the hall about their new idea of forcing employees to try and sell a warranty a 4th time to a customer who has refused it 3 times already is really going to change the bottom line, or one of their other aggressive, off-putting policies they've come up with over the years. Somewhere, there must exist people who think these are really good ideas. I want to know more about those people.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 18:37 |
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How does Best Buy plan to deal with the people who just use their stores as showrooms? From what I've read, the company's main problem these days is that people will come into the stores to physically try out things they're interested in buying, but then they go buy the stuff from Amazon or some other online retailer that offers them a cheaper price. This always seemed like a strange problem to me, given that Best Buy is already getting the customer in the doors of their stores. Maybe if they stopped pushing extended warranties and other extras, they could actually get more sales instead of relying on the few suckers who buy said warranties to keep Best Buy in the black.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 18:59 |
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Laser Spider posted:How does Best Buy plan to deal with the people who just use their stores as showrooms? From what I've read, the company's main problem these days is that people will come into the stores to physically try out things they're interested in buying, but then they go buy the stuff from Amazon or some other online retailer that offers them a cheaper price. They've combated that first problem by price matching Amazon; sure there's still sales tax, but the fact I can get the item instantly is worth it for the most part. As long as it's a major retailer (ie not some geocities website 'selling' stuff they should match it). The extended warranties are not bad at all; I get asked once if I want it, and that's it. Sometimes I say no, sometimes I'll ask "I got 30 days to add it, right?" implying that I'll likely be back to get it, and still it's just asked the one time.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 19:27 |
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uapyro posted:They've combated that first problem by price matching Amazon; sure there's still sales tax, but the fact I can get the item instantly is worth it for the most part. As long as it's a major retailer (ie not some geocities website 'selling' stuff they should match it). I've never gotten any bullshit over the warranties either, but every time I see a local Best Buy store get closed I can't help but wonder if this is retaliation from corporate for not harassing customers enough 
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 19:32 |
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Interesting. I started working for Best Buy in 2002 and my experience was probably different from most. I worked in the "Barry" segment of a lab store during the whole "customer centricity" thing (do you guys still do that?). I was also loaned out to a couple of different districts because I was pretty much the only guy who knew how to program the super high-end universal remotes (like $2000 Phillips ProntoPro's that we charged upwards of $1000 to program) in the region. I was on track to be a district install manager and quit when that position was eliminated and the district install teams were brought into the stores as extensions of Geek Squad in 2006. We did some pretty awesome things like basically putting Tweeter out of business and having numbers that were consistently top for our region. We showed that Best Buy could take significant business away from both the boutique stores and the volume-based retailers like Walmart by offering really drat good service, by people who knew what they were talking about, and had the flexibility to make stuff happen right there and then. We had access to product lines like Pioneer Elite and Sony XBR that regular Best Buy stores didn't carry. We had two install teams based out of our store and we were responsible for scheduling them, so we could give someone an exact block of time for when they would have their products delivered and/or installed. We had numerous situations where we literally rang a customer up, loaded their stuff into one of the install vans, and then followed him home to set everything up for him. If we didn't have it in stock right then and they still wanted it, we would usually be able to set up a "non-physical transfer" and pick it up from another store that had it before swinging by their house. That was how we could compete with Amazon.com, too. "Yes, you can find the same item for a little less online and not pay sales tax, but then you need to pay shipping and that brings you pretty close to this price right here, plus you need to wait a couple of days and then set up everything yourself. If you want this TV mounted on your wall with an awesome sound system and a universal remote that controls everything so your wife won't kill you for making it so that she needs to use three or four different remotes to watch a movie, I can get you 48 month no interest financing and schedule your install right now". We even had a miscellaneous install SKU we could use when someone wanted, say, a popcorn machine in their home theater room. The focus was the customer and making them happy, because happy customers spent money gladly and then came back to spend more money later. Best Buy paid for all of the segment employees to get subscriptions to audio/video magazines like Sound & Vision and Home Theater and arranged for us to meet with sales reps from a variety of manufacturers. We were still non-commission, but our pay was very good and we got performance-based bonuses. Our customers loved us and we did very, very well (banners all over the place for consistently being near the top in every metric). We were sure that what we were doing was the future of the company and blue skies, green pastures, and lots of money awaited us all. Then, one day, you corporate people took it all away for no reason at all and were shocked when the numbers plummeted. As opposed to, you know, bringing back what worked, they proceeded to fire or demote a lot of really great management talent that made them a lot of money and knew how to take care of customers. They were largely replaced by former Circuit City folks. It's kind of sad for me to read a lot of the other comments in this thread bemoaning the pushiness and lack of knowledge of Best Buy employees because we showed that there was a better way to do things. We showed that Best Buy's customers were willing to pay for convenience and knowledgeable, quality service and I can quite frankly say that I was a true believer in what we were doing with "customer centricity". As a result of the company as a whole completely ignoring everything that we did to kick rear end and consistently comp up year after year, I've never been a huge fan of "corporate". I understand that you weren't involved in any of those decisions, but if you know someone who was, can you please kick them in the nuts for me? That having been said, how long have you worked for Best Buy? I'd really be curious to hear what happened around 2006 that made corporate abandon the "customer centricity" push, as everything at the store and district level made it look very successful. I Demand Food fucked around with this message at Jan 23, 2013 around 19:20 |
| # ? Jan 22, 2013 19:49 |
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BigDave posted:Best Buy is a warranty company that sells electronics. So if I were so inclined, could I get a warranty on an item bought from somewhere else? Or does it not work like that?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 20:14 |
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greenchair posted:So if I were so inclined, could I get a warranty on an item bought from somewhere else? Or does it not work like that? It does not work like that. All that he means is that basically every big ticket item in their store is a loss leader (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loss_leader) which is sold in order to boost sales of warranties, which they make disgusting profit margins on.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 20:21 |
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What the hell happened to your music departments, man?! When my local Best Buy opened up their music department two years or so ago the manager there actually took me through the hiring process. They would only hire people who actually had musical backgrounds and could be familiar with what they were selling and be able to talk shop. Believe it or not the people working there were fantastic and I personally spent thousands there on new instruments because even though the selection was much smaller than a Guitar Center, etc., the employees actually knew their poo poo and could cut a deal with you to get product moving. They could properly setup, adjust and repair instruments. Now apparently they've fired or transferred all their people who work specifically in music and its just either random people from other departments occasionally wandering in not knowing what they are talking about or the area is empty. Just weird to see the music department die after being so active and having a good local reputation. All the local mom and pop places are gone, too : (
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 20:26 |
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KildarX posted:How did the business model actually end up working? I mean according to your op it seems the answer is "it doesn't", but to become a large chain store it had to have worked at one point? Was there just a time when people thought warranties where a good idea? Lack of competition? The devices themselves have low or negative margins, but overpriced accessories make money, not just the warranties. Why do you think HDMI cables in retail stores are so expensive and like $2.50 on Monoprice?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 20:48 |
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Incredulous Dylan posted:What the hell happened to your music departments, man?! When my local Best Buy opened up their music department two years or so ago the manager there actually took me through the hiring process. They would only hire people who actually had musical backgrounds and could be familiar with what they were selling and be able to talk shop. Believe it or not the people working there were fantastic and I personally spent thousands there on new instruments because even though the selection was much smaller than a Guitar Center, etc., the employees actually knew their poo poo and could cut a deal with you to get product moving. They could properly setup, adjust and repair instruments. Now apparently they've fired or transferred all their people who work specifically in music and its just either random people from other departments occasionally wandering in not knowing what they are talking about or the area is empty. Not to be snarky but really. Digital music sales passed physical sales for the first time in 2011 but the writing was on the wall when the iPod went sales crazy. Whoops, thought you were talking about music sales, not musical instrument sales. Instruments at Best Buy? That's new to me. KildarX posted:How did the business model actually end up working? I mean according to your op it seems the answer is "it doesn't", but to become a large chain store it had to have worked at one point? Was there just a time when people thought warranties where a good idea? Lack of competition? The business model worked like any other retailer (sorry if this is just econ101): -Start with one store. Work on charm and price to build a brand and business. Expand to start a chain. -Continue expansion to lock-in discount volume deals from suppliers, pass savings off to customers to continue growth. -Eventually you wring out all the discounts/efficiencies on the supplier side and you're now selling at a level just above 'just above cost' (you're national now and you've got pretty good prices but not so low you can't make a decent profits plus you're huge so the volume of product being moved makes up for lower margins). -The internet is invented and now you're facing competition from companies without the added cost of showroom floors. You cut prices to the 'just above cost' level and have no where else to go. This is where some Egghead in corporate dreams up the warranties/payment plans/overpriced cables/install services extras. -Competition continues to offer better prices and stealing more from the traditional electronics revenue. Warranties/gimmicks become more important to the point where electronics may be sold below cost if it means higher extra sales make up for it (due to their margins being so high). That's why you see Best Buy closing tons of stores. Reducing overhead allows a tiny bit more room to compete on price, and as uapyro stated, if they can get close enough that's all it takes to get the customer to buy the product. Is that a successful business model? Not really but they've got to do something while figuring out what the next business model actually is. Thwomp fucked around with this message at Jan 23, 2013 around 15:52 |
| # ? Jan 22, 2013 20:51 |
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corpsed posted:Is there actually a rivalry between Best Buy and hhgregg? When I worked at hhgregg, we kept hearing about all this bad blood between the two companies from management, always laughing at Best Buy employees and the company as a whole. Is it nonexistent or is this true? I never gave a poo poo, but I'm curious I suppose. Holy poo poo, hhgregg is actually a company? I thought you had fat fingered newegg or something... Anyway, who had the bright idea to make Best Buy into a musical instrument seller and then into a high-end home appliance store? I mean holy poo poo, talk about a corporate identity crises...
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 21:19 |
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Is there anybody high up at the company who is responsible for customer experience? Does anybody realize that many of the things they are rewarding/punishing CS associates for actually drive customers away? I'm not talking about warranties (although that drives me nuts), I'm talking about people dive-bombing in to help me who *don't know the stock*. I can be standing right there looking at video cables, somebody can show up and say "Can I help you?" and I'll say "Do you have any fooble-to-gooble cables" and they will immediately start staring in exactly the same place I'm looking. Or they'll say "Oh, I don't know, let me go get our cable guy." I can take clueless salespeople. I can take intrusive salespeople. But salespeople who are clueless *and* intrusive, who waste my time ... no. e: Whoops, sorry for the rant. The question is, "Does anybody measure or evaluate customer experience, and does that person have any say over metrics?"
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 21:34 |
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What percentage of people do you need to buy the warranties to make the whole enterprise worthwhile? I get the corporate argument for selling them. They're like spam mails - even if only a few people take the offer, it's all good because it essentially costs nothing to give them out in the first place. But if you're selling everything for a loss, you'll need to sell at least some warranties just to stay in the black.
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 21:46 |
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Thwomp posted:Not to be snarky but really. Digital music sales passed physical sales for the first time in 2011 but the writing was on the wall when the iPod went sales crazy. I don't really understand this statement. It could be reworded to say "Just under half of all music sales are physical sales." Which is still a not-insignificant number. Where are those purchased then? Just Walmart and Starbucks now?
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| # ? Jan 22, 2013 22:01 |
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johnny sack posted:Do best buys still try to shove magazine subscriptions The warranties were one thing, but I know a ton of people who stopped going because of those "free" magazines that were added automatically onto purchases. Best Buy deserves everything they got for that scamming bullshit. counterfeitsaint posted:I don't really understand this statement. It could be reworded to say "Just under half of all music sales are physical sales." Which is still a not-insignificant number. Where are those purchased then? Just Walmart and Starbucks now? People buying cd's online. You can't give warranties on them, so they aren't really profitable to sell in a store. There's lots of reasons why record stores have all but disappeared. KildarX posted:How did the business model actually end up working? I mean according to your op it seems the answer is "it doesn't", but to become a large chain store it had to have worked at one point? Was there just a time when people thought warranties where a good idea? Lack of competition? Lack of competition most of all, dumber customers as well. Now people know they can go on amazon, newegg, and monoprice and get the poo poo for way cheaper. They know warranties are worthless. Plus delivery times have really been reduced. It used to take a lot longer to get something in the mail, these companies will get you what you want to your door within 3 days max, usually. The fact you won't get hassled throughout the process is another huge plus that bb has been utterly deaf about. 312 fucked around with this message at Jan 22, 2013 around 22:24 |
| # ? Jan 22, 2013 22:14 |
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| # ? May 26, 2013 03:50 |
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Thwomp posted:iTunes. I'm pretty sure he was talking about musical instruments, not CDs.
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| # ? Jan 23, 2013 00:12 |
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