Why I won’t be shopping at Best Buy again(and you shouldn’t either)
**UPDATE**
I got a note back this afternoon from “Lucas” in customer service. Basically apologizing for my frustration while otherwise being completely useless.
Trevor,
I am Lucas with Best Buy Customer Care.
I’m sorry to hear you had such a bad experience with us. I know how a situation like these can be frustrating, and in this case I’ll take your comments and I’ll pass the message for corporate purpose and to everyone who was involved.
I apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused you.
Sincerely,
Lucas
Best Buy Customer Care Team
I’ll let the letter I sent to them explain the story. Updates as I get them. I will not be setting foot in a Best Buy again. At least not with MY money.
My friend and I (Andrew, he has already emailed you about this issue) have been loyal best buy customers for many years now. One thing that has been a bit of a thorn in my side about the store has been it’s lack of defined policy regarding software. It seems to me that we are told many things by different employees and then the employee who ends up at the end point has to hide behind the shield of “company policy”. This all came to a head when trying to aquire “Age of Conan” collector’s edition.
I have been a pretty loyal customer, I usually don’t walk out of the store without purchasing at least $50 in merchandise. The day I preordered was no exception. I did my research online on the preorder promotion. I was really interested in the collectors edition and after reading from FunCom’s website that preorders would get first shot at the extremely limited print of this product I immediately went down to my local Best Buy to reserve my copy. I was just going in to reserve the game but ended up picking up a couple of dvds as well totaling out to around 55 dollars at the end of it. I spoke to the media specialist there and told him what I had learned online as I so no preorders for the collectors edition. He assured me that preorders would get first stab at whatever collectors editions they received.
A few weeks later the early access program began. Many people were bragging online that they had already gotten their copies of the retail game early from different outlets “Amazon”, “Gamestop” etc. This was three days earlier than the game was set to release. Worried that I might miss out on my collector’s edition, I phoned Best Buy to be told that they would not be selling any copies until the 20th of May as scheduled. Out of curiosity I called my local Gamestop and was told that they did indeed have the game and it was available for purchase. All but 2 of the remaining collectors editions were reserved for preorders. I could have driven down there in five minutes and received my copy with no further inconvenience or aggravation on my part however I just stayed the course, followed the rules and waited for my copy. The day before the game was released there was some panic on the forums about the collectors edition being sold out. I phoned Best Buy again and was told that they had a few copies and if I preordered I should be able to get one. I asked if they were doing a midnight sale and they said no(Several other outlets WERE). I told them I was concerned I wouldn’t get it because, while I could make the midnight sale I had a job and couldn’t get there till later in the afternoon. They said I could come by and reserve my copy. I showed up to the store minutes later only to be told by the media specialist (Mark C) that I was misinformed. He stated and I quote “We can’t reserve them for you now, what you can do is call customer service first thing in the morning and let them know you have a preorder and they can set it aside. We can’t reserve it tonight but just speak with someone in the morning and let them take care of it.”. Satisfied with our answer we went home. The next day Andrew called the store repeatedly around 10am only to get busy signals and hangups. When he finally did reach someone at 10:15 they told him that it was store policy NOT to hold games. He explained what he was told by Mark and was given the “I’m sorry you were misinformed but this is the way it is” spiel. He was told there was one copy of it left and if someone came in to buy it (preorder or not) she had to sell it.
This goes against everything we were told by FunCom and more importantly everything we were told by your company.
When we got off work we drove straight over there FURIOUS. Mark had told us the previous evening that he wasn’t going to be working on the 20th. When we walked in the store we spotted him. We called him over to come with us to the customer service counter. We walked up to the counter and asked for our collectors edition copies. The employee behind the counter looked around for a copy of it. While he was doing that Mark, very flustered, told us “Having a preorder doesn’t guarantee you a copy of the collectors edition. Only the game.” We told him that’s NOT what he told us last night and he knew it. We told him that he had said very clearly that if we called in the morning they could set one aside for us which he rebutted “I said see if the COULD do it, not that they would”. If this was company policy I would think there would be no question in the “Media specialists” mind that they couldn’t. He went behind the counter and and continued to explain that no where on the box did it state that it got us the collectors edition. He also stated that the preorder program was a privilege not a right. He said “These preorders are us going OUT OF OUR WAY to ensure you receive a copy of the game.” I explained to him that wasn’t the case. The preorders helped you guys out so you knew how many copies of the game to order to ensure that you don’t have dissatisfied customers. The preorder program is profitable for stores that engage in it. It brings money in before the game hits the shelves and it drums up business for it. His comments were patronizing and insinuated that they were doing us a favor by even letting us purchase the game. He stated that preorders were difficult to deal with because they DIDN’T know how many copies of the game to get and that it led to over ordering. To which I rebutted “Then you are doing it wrong.”. Here’s where the conversation turned and why Best Buy no longer has my business. He went on to state “I agree with you 100% which is why I did my preorder at GameStop”. Here is this Best Buy employee telling me basically “Sorry chump, you are out of luck, you should have done it at another store like me.”. This is a representative of your company telling me to shop somewhere else. So on his advice, I will. It ended up another BestBuy store had 3 copies. They quickly called the store and had them hold them for us(I thought this was against company policy?). We went and picked them up.
I will not be setting foot in a Best Buy store again. I don’t expect you to do anything about this. I just want to explain why you are losing customer after customer. This has happened two other times to Andrew and at least one other time to me. I’ll be taking Mark C’s advice and shopping for my games at GameStop from now on.
Dissatisfied,
Trevor Griffin
