angry customers

while i was working at best buy today this lady came up to me and asked me where she could find VHS....i kindly told her that we did not carry any VHS that she would have to get it from bestbuy.com she was very angry and started yelling well i want the movie now. i then told her to stop living in the 1980's and to go back there and buy one of the DVD players that we had for 19 dollars and buy the 9 dollar dvd and her problems would be solved....she flipped me off and left the store......

 

Yieks

Sounds rough lol. Well it was blackfriday. I was fighting through the crowds, so i guess its to be expected.



cooked

 

I would've flipped you off too. I liked the 80's.

 

id just like to express my appreciation to know that at least one best buy employee knows what the f*** they are talking about. i applaud you dear todd, keep up the good work.

 

Yeah!! But you got to remember the old saying: "The customer is always right" ha!

 

This poor lady has issues that video media formats wont address.

 

I wouldn't have flipped you off...but it is good to know that Best Buy doesn't carry VHS any more. One more reason not to shop there. Does bestbuy.com offer free shipping for items they can't be bothered to stock in their stores for those who have already made the trip to the store to purchase them?

No matter the reason, had you told me to "stop living in the 80's" (in what I can only assume from the comment was a snotty tone of voice), I'd have been talking to your manager.

 

more black friday craziness from the customer's point of view :

http://forums.majorgeeks.com/showthread.php?t=48179

(does the link work? hope so)

 

Well...

While the woman was nothing short of a...well anyway, if I was that customer, and a salesperson said that to me, I would have bought that 19 dollar DVD player just so I could force-feed it to the salesperson.

Whole.

Still in the box.

Customers may be rude, but I find rude best Buy employees far worse. Its nothing personal, but as a customer I demand a certain level of courtesy from those I am giving money to. Even if I am demanding.

It would have been better to tell her Im sorry and leave it at that.

 

The thing is, people do tend to be reluctant to change to new techs., even if the new tech. is much better. I only bother with VHS because I have so many tapes I want to view occasionally, and frankly, I can't be arsed converting them.

On the other hand, there's never (well hardly ever) any excuse for abusive behavior.

 

I'd say minus the insult, that would have been a good reply

 

Exactly. And much better-said than mine. I'd have force-fed it in reverse, however.

 

the cool thing was that my manager was standing right next to me...remember the article someone had up that best buy does not want bad customers. She was one and he noticed it and asked her to leave right after i did

 

That is not cool...That is far from cool

 

www.bestbuysux.org
enough said, the store and its PSP (warranties) are a rip off.
people are stupid enough to buy stuff from the store when they can find the same things for cheaper at other smaller stores.
it's all about marketing, big colorful/colourful (US/cdn-spelling) letters, a nice big bright sign outside the store, with a weekly flyer.

 

Not cool. It was poor salemanship on your part, incompetence on your managers part for allowing you to treat a customer rudely, and Best Buy apparently wants no customers if this is store policy.

 

Yup, that's my thought. It may be cool for the present time...but pissed off, angry customers who were treated like shit by both an employee and a manager tend to tell anyone and everyone how Best Buy treats customers, and other people tend to listen to them and choose to shop elsewhere. I wonder how cool you'll think it is when Best Buy has to let you go because they don't have enough business to justify keeping your job?

And with you bragging about it online, there are going to be even more people who think it sucks, and will also not be shopping at Best Buy. I already avoided the place whenever possible (I've got a Circuit City three blocks away that has better prices on just about everything I want, if I need to quick go to a chain rather than the local electronics stores), now I'll be sure to. If the department manager supported an employee as rude as you were, then I'd move on to the store manager.

 

Thats exactly what I did.

Employee treated me like crap when my wife's Sony Clie broke. We had a replacement warranty. They wanted to give us the model lower because they no longer carried hers. It was ugly, smaller and had no cradle. We had avoided this model like the plague and paid 100 dollars more to get the next model up because my wife hated it so much.

We said, Give us the next model up!

The employee said no, and was very rude. He got his manager, who was even ruder and proceeded to cut me off whenever I said something.

So we called corp. Then we talked to the store manager.

We got what we wanted, the next model up.

Were we happy? Sure. Should we have been treated like crap?
No!

It took us 2 hours to get a damn product replaced under the extended warranty!


Just like them trying to not honor a sale on a product because it was over by the time the product was shipped to the stores due to delays. We fought for a long time with that one, too.

Best Buy is a joke, plain and simple.

 

I love Best Buy, they're US-only

 

Agree with Adrynalyne. No business can survive without customers (think about it). Todd, his manager and his company appear to be hellbent on going down this path. Me, I've got a DVD player, a CD/DVD player on my laptop and an external CD burner. I'm going to buy a VHS recorder and a supply of VHS tapes before they vanish from the market as I cannot see the benefit of buying a DVD burner/recorder for my TV as hard drives get full up and crash even in DVD recorders. At least with videos you have them for many years. Bazza

 

hmmm....
i just noticed. The title of this thread fits! we're all angry customers.. (well, except for todd..)
and I haven't had a bad experience at Best Buy yet so i got no hard feelings towards it... yet

 

I think that there's a point that people need to just move along with the times. I think that point should've been hit by now. But I'm continually surprised at work by how many people don't know how to use a computer nonetheless what it really is.

My screen is black and it won't go anywhere......DID YA TRY THE POWER BUTTON?!?!

*sigh*

 

LOL at that one!!!

 

Perhaps so. But then...why do so many people still own/collect albums?

It's fine if Best Buy (or any other store) has decided that for its inventory, they don't want to carry VHS tapes. That's their prerogative. But they don't need to be arrogant pricks about it.

 

A salesman who pisses customers off instead of taking the opportunity to make a sale, well, isn't a good salesman. You could have tried an honest pitch at a DVD player and some DVDs.

May I suggest pumping gas? There aren't too many choices for the customer at the pump and you don't even havae to talk much to them.

 

I can see your point of being a better sales man but man! You guys are getting vicious!

 

Mayeb because they/we can relate to the woman.

 

.02

Todd's 1st response was polite and informative

Woman's response was overly demanding. It is obvious that English isn't her first language otherwise she would have said something along the lines of "oh, I didn't realize that. Thank you, I will check out bestbuy.com " instead of the unwarranted demand that he magically produce an item which they no longer carry in stores.

Todd's second response was a little obnoxious, but funny. I would have opted for the more polite redirection of anger and lead her to the sale items of DVD players and the particular movies she was looking for on DVD with accessories.

 

A good salesperson would have used that opportunity to convert that woman to a happy dvd buying customer (especially at those prices). Even if she had gone off and decided not to buy the dvd player or dvd she probably would have gone elsewhere, found out it was equally as hard to find what she wanted on vhs anywhere else and may have come back to the nice salesperson who helped her out. Instead, you used this opportunity to show how rude & horrifying most salespeople are and shared your story to brag about exactly how rude you were.

Studies have shown over and over again that a happy customer will tell 3 other people and an unhappy customer will tell 12 other people. Not to mention the fact that the unhappy customer usually exaggerates making their experience seem even worse. (These numbers vary from report to report but you get the point)

??? Best Buy salespeople work on commission don't they???? I guess you don't need the money huh??

Myself, I would have taken names, contacted the Corporate office along with the District &/or Regional Manager and reported everyone.

 

Alright, alright ...

Todd isn't this stereotyped evil "Best Buy Employee" person most people seem to be making out that he is. Personally I've never been to Best buy, but thats because I don't live in the USA, so its a bit of a trek!

I would agree that the "stop living in the 80's" part was probably a bit OTT, but really it wasn't Todd here at fault, but the customer (who was obviously not in a calm state of mind at the time), with an amusing result. And thus the reason he started the thread Not to get told he is an example of a terrible firm at work.

Mann goes into a dating agency shop
Mann : "I'm looking to meet a woman called Linda Johnson"
Shopkeep : "Err, okay, any particular traits you're looking for?"
Mann : "She has to be called Linda Johnson"
Shopkeep : "Okay.... I'll see what we can do" (yells to person in the office behind) "Do we have anyone called Linda Johnson? "Have a look in the red file!!"
Shopkeep takes out the red file, finds a woman called Lillian Johnson
Mann : "No, she has to be called Linda Johnson."
Shopkeep : "Ahh, here we go, Linda Johnson! Shes 5' 5" and has long brown hair"
Mann : "Does she have green eyes?"
Shopkeep : "No, she has brilliant green ones"
Mann : "Oh, that won't do.."

 

I love you, you love me.....

 

Best Buy brags about how their salespeople do NOT work on commission, actually. It was one of the selling points that made me go there initially, thinking I wouldn't be pressured into buying something I didn't want. Instead, I've found that it makes the salespeople not give a damn if you buy something or not, because they'll be paid anyway.

 

The woman went to BB to buy a videotape, not to be met with a snide comment by some commedian sales clerk. What either intended is irrelevant. I've had the misfortune to work in retail in my youth, and would have been terminated immediately for a similiar act, no matter how rude and abusive a customer I faced. Unless he plans on a lifetime career with BB, he might wish to reconsider his attitude. While he wears the BB logo, he is the face of the company. What disturbed me most was a manager approved of this behavior. I have always taken BB horror stories with a grain of salt, as I have recieved good service from them (so far), now I can't help but wonder.

 

I chalk it up to what I like to call "The Six Month Rule", where the braggadoccio about no commission meaning "I won't try to oversell you" comes around full circle to "I won't try to sell you anything".

The same also applies to fast food restaurants where "Welcome to [chain name], would you like to try our new super bacon cheeseburger today?" and "Thank you, and please come again!" quickly devolve into "Take your order?" and "Next?" once the initial training folks from the head office have all gone back to wherever they came from and left Skippy in charge.

 

well i doubt if i would have said that if i was a sales person, but im not i stand at the front door and had to check customer orders... this lady came up to me and asked me the same question she already asked a sales person. she said some more horrible things that i could not repeat on this fine website.

 

You wear the company shirt and the name tag-- you got no excuse to say what you did to anyone.

 

Did your manager actually approve of your response? No one is saying that you are a despicable, evil person, only that you just went over the line with the 80's comment. Asking an unreasonable and abusive customer to leave is appropriate, insulting and demeaning that customer is not. When you work with people, you must be professional and reasonable even if the customer is not. Your manager should have taught you that. Should you move on to another job, it is highly unlikely that such behavior will be tolerated, much less condoned by another employer.

 

I agree. If said salesperson/orderchecker/doormat knew what he/she was doing, he could have made a sale and got recognized for it. Now all you did is piss off a customer and probably ruined her day. Nice going!

 

My 2 cents:

I can see both sides. I worked in retail (never again!), and I was a manager and responsible for my employees behavior. The stat I had was: for every 1 happy customer, they told 1 person - for every 1 unhappy customer, they told 5 people. Regardless of the exact stat, the point is: it is best to have a happy customer. This is especially important for small businesses. There is something to be said for the comment: big business employees don't give a crap about you. That is exactly the problem with big business. That being said, however, I never took any crap from anybody (nor did I expect the people under me to). If our initial helpfull and friendly attitude was met with belligerence, then that is what they got back. Sometimes this is the only thing people understand. It may not be the best way, but sometimes I find it necessary. I don't feel the initial post was bragging, more like he needed to get a bad experience off his chest. Hopefully he learned from the experince and realizes (as I did) that retail probably isn't the best career decision.

 

Ageed!! Better her flipping you than me!! George.